Clinical diagnosis of hirsutism in Thai women

Abstract

Objective: To determine the cutoff score for identifying hirsute, Thai women, by using modified Ferriman-Gallwey-Lorenzo (mF-G-L) method.

Material and method: Hirsutism was defined as an amount of terminal hair in the androgen-sensitive skin areas that the women themselves would consider obviously abnormal, and their mF-G-L score was above 97.5 percentile of general population. The subjects were consecutive unselected premenopausal women who came to our hospital for their yearly Papanicolaou smear check up, without any complaint. Acne and oily skin were also assessed.

Results: Five hundred and thirty-one women underwent a physical exam. The women who had the total hair-growth score of 0, 1 and 2 by mF-G-L method accounted for 97.8% of all the subjects. All of the 11 subjects with a total score of 3 or more considered themselves to have excessive growth of hair. None of these 11 women had acne.

Conclusion: The authors purposed that the cutoff score to diagnose Thai hirsutism may be 3 or more by mF-G-L method.