Physiotherapeutic methods in the complex treatment of alopecia

Abstract

This review of the available publications presents and analyzes a modern view of foreign and national researchers on non-scarring alopecia and considers effectiveness of existing methods of drug and physiotherapeutic treatment. The article states the urgent nature of the hair loss issue, describes the clinical picture and reports on insufficiently studied etiopathogenesis of the disease. The paper then focuses on drug therapy of androgenetic, diffuse and patchy alopecia, and presents drug therapy for alopecia areata depending on the stage of the disease. The paper gives a detailed review of physiotherapeutic factors used in integrated treatment of non-scarring alopecia, describes mechanism of their action, as well as methods and techniques of physiotherapeutic treatment of androgenetic, diffuse and patchy alopecia. In the range of physiotherapeutic methods for treatment of non-scarring alopecia, the review highlights methods with proven efficacy, such as phototherapy with low-intensity red and infrared laser radiation, ultraviolet radiation, ozone therapy, excimer laser, etc. Among other things, the paper describes use of incoherent light sources for alopecia and concludes that incoherent light sources such as LEDs can work just as well as lasers, causing intracellular photo-biochemical reactions and affecting cellular metabolism.