Diagnosis Of Hair Diseases Research Articles

Trichoscopic findings of trichotillomania: new observations.

IntroductionRecently, dermoscopy of the hair and scalp, also known as trichoscopy, has become an important diagnostic tool in the diagnosis of hair diseases. There are few studies describing trichoscopic findings of trichotillomania (TTM).AimTo evaluate and identify specific trichoscopic features of TTM.Material and methodsThe study included 20 patients diagnosed with TTM on the basis of the clinical history, physical examination and trichoscopic findings. All of the trichoscopic images of the patients were retrospectively reviewed and the findings identified were recorded. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed.ResultsThe findings detected were broken hairs at different levels (100%), short vellus hairs ( 90%), black dots (85%), trichoptilosis (75%), V hair (70%), hair powder (65%), yellow dots (55%), Mace hair (45%), coiled hairs (45%), exclamation mark hair (40%), blood spots (40%), branched hair (40%), angulated hair (40%), concentric hair (35%), flame hair (30%), and tulip hair (25%).ConclusionsHere we have documented trichoscopic findings of TTM retrospectively. Trichoptilosis, V hair and hair powder were the most frequent relatively specific findings. We tried to define novel findings that we named branched hair and concentric hair. We also detected Mace hair in 9 cases. Mace hair was previously described just in 3 cases of TTM in a case study. Angulated hairs, to the best of our knowledge, were also firstly described for TTM in the present study. Lack of a comparison group is the main limitation of the study.

Trichoscopy: a new frontier for the diagnosis of hair diseases

Trichoscopy is hair and scalp dermoscopy using a handheld dermoscope or polarized light video microscope. This article shows the revised trichoscopic algorithm for common hair loss diseases. For the algorithm for cicatricial alopecia, loss of orifices, micropustules and/or hair tufting with six or more hairs should be carefully observed. When loss of hair orifices cannot be seen in the hair loss area, diagnosis as noncicatricial alopecia is established. Among noncicatricial alopecia, alopecia areata is most commonly encountered and should be mainly considered for differential diagnosis. Therefore, the first check point is yellow dots, black dots or broken hairs. The hallmark of androgenetic alopecia and tinea capitis is hair diameter diversity (≥20%) and comma hairs, respectively. Hair shaft abnormalities can be diagnosed from the characteristics of trichoscopy reported until now.

Qualitative investigation of fresh human scalp hair with full-field optical coherence tomography

We have investigated depth-resolved cellular structures of unmodified fresh human scalp hairs with ultrahigh-resolution full-field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT). The Linnik-type white light interference microscope has been home-implemented to observe the micro-internal layers of human hairs in their natural environment. In hair shafts, FF-OCT has qualitatively revealed the cellular hair compartments of cuticle and cortex layers involved in keratin filaments and melanin granules. No significant difference between black and white hair shafts was observed except for absence of only the melanin granules in the white hair, reflecting that the density of the melanin granules directly affects the hair color. Anatomical description of plucked hair bulbs was also obtained with the FF-OCT in three-dimensions. We expect this approach will be useful for evaluating cellular alteration of natural hairs on cosmetic assessment or diagnosis of hair diseases.