Dermatoscopic evaluation of alopecia areata

Abstract

Objective: to assess the dermoscopic characteristics of alopecia areata and their correlations with clinical variants, nail changes, and severity of the disease. Patients and methods: This is a case-series study, which was carried out on 209 patients with alopecia areata in the Department of Dermatology from January 2020 to January 2021 at Ibn-Sina Teaching Hospital, Mosul, Iraq. After the patient's acceptance to participate in this study, a detailed history was taken. A clinical and dermatological examination was done included hair pulling test, and disease severity was graded according to the severity of alopecia tool (SALT) scoring. Each patch of alopecia areata was examined and assessed using a SKIARY Smartphone Dermatoscope©, photos ‎were taken and evaluated by three dermatologist experts in dermatoscopy separately ‎and their notes were recorded, evaluated, and tabulated‎. Spearman`s rank-order correlation test was used for data analysis. Results: Two hundred and nine patients with alopecia areata had participated in this research. The male to female ratio was 1.5:1. The mean age of presentation was of 21 ± 10.64 years. 45% of the patients had Grade S2 severity. Yellow dots were the most common dermatoscopic finding followed by black dots, while perifollicular scales were the least common. Yellow dots, broken hairs, exclamation mark hairs, and nails changes were correlated with the severe form of the disease (P <0.05). Conclusion: