Prevalence and patterns of hirsutism among Sri Lankan females

Noel Somasundaram ,W K M G Amarawardena,S D Kamaladasa ,D J S Fernando

doi:10.4038/sjdem.v5i1.7274

Abstract

Objectives: In order to describe the prevalence of hirsutism in young female population of Sri Lanka, we studied a group of young females to determine the pattern of body hair distribution and grade it according to the modified Ferriman-Gallwey score (mFG). Method: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in the year 2000 with eighty-five female medical students who entered the Sri Jayawardenapura University that year. After consent, each subject was interviewed by a medical officer and an interviewer-administered questionnaire was utilized. The body hair distribution was recorded using the mFG score. Results: Age of the study population ranged from 21 to 24 years. None of them have used steroids or psoralens prior to study. Only 3 (3.5%) had menstrual irregularity. The mode, Mean and the Median of the total MFG score were 5.0, 8.9 and 9.0 (IQR- 5 to 11) respectively. The prevalence of hirsutism was 56.5% (CI from 45.96 to 67.04) among the study population. Lower limb score had the highest mean value of 1.80 while Lip score had the lowest mean value of 0.31. All the 09 variables had statistically significant correlations with the total score while ‘‘lower abdomen score’’ had the strongest correlation of 0.82. Conclusion: The prevalence of hirsutism among this young female population was relatively high (56.5%). They were seen to have a high degree of hair growth in all the areas tested on mFG score. The lower abdominal area had the strongest correlation with the mFG score. As many factors including genetic predisposition determine hirsutism this has to be considered when evaluation of young females for hirsutism. Sri Lanka Journal of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism 2015; 5: 51-55

Highlights

Hirsutism is defined as the presence of excessive terminal hair in androgen-dependent areas of the female
Hirsutism is usually caused by benign functional conditions, polycystic ovary syndrome, but may be the presenting symptom of a malignant tumor requiring immediate intervention
The objectives were to determine the prevalence of hirsutism among a group of young females, to determine the pattern of body hair distribution and grade them on modified Ferriman-Gallwey score (mFG) system and to describe correlation between individual parameters in the mFG with the total mFG score

Summary

Introduction

Hirsutism is defined as the presence of excessive terminal (coarse) hair in androgen-dependent areas of the female. It has been found that hirsutism negatively influences psychological well-being [2]. Hirsutism is usually caused by benign functional conditions (idiopathic hirsutism), polycystic ovary syndrome, but may be the presenting symptom of a malignant tumor requiring immediate intervention. The prevalence of hirsutism is around 10% in most populations [3]. The prevalence of hirsutism among Sri Lankan females is unknown. Studies demonstrate racial and genetic variation of hair distribution in females; Sri Lankan and Middle Eastern ethnic being hairier. Several hirsutism scores for women have been proposed based on visual assessment of hair type and growth [4,5,6,7,8]

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Discussion

Conclusion