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. 2019 Aug;5(5):309-315.
doi: 10.1159/000496708. Epub 2019 Apr 2.

Frequency of the Types of Alopecia at Twenty-Two Specialist Hair Clinics: A Multicenter Study

Sergio Vañó-Galván  1 , David Saceda-Corralo  1 , Ulrike Blume-Peytavi  2 , Jose Cucchía  3 , Ncoza C Dlova  4 , Maria Fernanda Reis Gavazzoni Dias  5 , Ramon Grimalt  6 , Daniela Guzmán-Sánchez  7 , Matthew Harries  8 , Anthony Ho  9 , Susan Holmes  10 , Jorge Larrondo  11 , Anisa Mosam  4 , Rui Oliveira-Soares  12   13 , Giselle M Pinto  14 , Bianca M Piraccini  15 , Rodrigo Pirmez  16 , Daniel De la Rosa Carrillo  17 , Lidia Rudnicka  18 , Jerry Shapiro  9 , Rodney Sinclair  19   20 , Antonella Tosti  21 , Ralph M Trüeb  22 , Annika Vogt  2 , Mariya Miteva  23
Affiliations

Frequency of the Types of Alopecia at Twenty-Two Specialist Hair Clinics: A Multicenter Study

Sergio Vañó-Galván et al. Skin Appendage Disord. 2019 Aug.

Abstract

Background: The frequency of different types of alopecia is not clearly reported in recent studies.

Objective: To analyze the frequency of the types of alopecia in patients consulting at specialist hair clinics (SHC) and to assess for global variations.

Methods: Multicenter retrospective study including data from patients evaluated at referral SHC in Europe, America, Africa and Australia.

Results: A total of 2,835 patients (72.7% females and 27.3% males) with 3,133 diagnoses of alopecia were included (73% were non-cicatricial and 27% were cicatricial alopecias). In all, 57 different types of alopecia were characterized. The most frequent type was androgenetic alopecia (AGA) (37.7%), followed by alopecia areata (AA) (18.2%), telogen effluvium (TE) (11.3%), frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) (10.8%), lichen planopilaris (LPP) (7.6%), folliculitis decalvans (FD) (2.8%), discoid lupus (1.9%) and fibrosing alopecia in a pattern distribution (FAPD) (1.8%). There was a male predominance in patients with acne keloidalis nuchae, dissecting cellulitis and FD, and female predominance in traction alopecia, central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia, FFA, TE, FAPD and LPP.

Conclusion: AGA followed by AA and TE were the most frequent cause of non-cicatricial alopecia, while FFA was the most frequent cause of cicatricial alopecia in all studied geographical areas.

Keywords: Alopecia; Alopecia areata; Androgenetic alopecia; Epidemiology; Folliculitis decalvans; Frontal fibrosing alopecia; Hair diseases; Lichen planopilaris; Telogen effluvium.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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