Chronic disease of a possible autoimmune cause. It is characterized by a sudden, limited hair loss in a form of round, oval, single or multiple focal points of various sizes. In some cases, alopecia areata has a diffuse form or ophiasis – and then it is located at the circumference of the head – especially in occipital area. It may also happen that hair loss takes place on the whole area of a head (alopecia totalis) or on the whole body area (alopecia universalis).  In case of 20 % of the sick there appear so called “thimble nails”.

In trichoscopy there are observed areas with visible yellow dots corresponding to empty connective tissue hair sheaths. Additionally, there may appear black dots, “exclamation mark” hair and “micro-exclamation mark” hair, which suggest an active disease process. Positive symptoms observed in trichoscopy are hair growing back, pigtail hair and vellus hair.

 

Curing:

Irritative preparations, immunosuppressive medications used topically or in more advanced cases – orally, PUVA.