6th June 2025

Alopecia

• Alopecia Areata
  • Thought to be an autoimmune condition that causes hair to fall out
• Androgenetic Alopecia
  • Male pattern hair loss and female pattern hair loss. Hair falls out in a well-defined pattern in men, whereas in women, the hair usually becomes thinner all over the head rather than receding from the temples.
• Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia
  • A form of scarring alopecia that starts in the centre of the scalp.
• Chemotherapy-Induced Alopecia (CIA)
  • When the hair falls out following chemotherapy.
• Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia (FFA)
  • A type of Scarring Alopecia, where the hair follicle is destroyed and replaced with scar tissue.
• Traction Alopecia
  • when hair falls out because it has been pulled in the same way for a long time. 
• Trichotillomania 
  • A psychological condition, where you cannot stop pulling out hair, which leads to hair loss.

Alopecia Areata

Alopecia is the medical term for bald and areata means patchy. This patchy baldness can develop anywhere on the body, including the scalp, beard area, eyebrows, eyelashes, armpits, inside the nose, or ears. Alopecia areata happens when the immune system attacks hair follicles and causes hair loss. Researchers do not fully understand what causes the immune attack on hair follicles, but they believe that both genetic and environmental factors play a role. Anyone can have alopecia areata. Men and women get it equally, and it affects all racial and ethnic groups. If it occurs when you are younger typically it is more extensive. People with certain autoimmune diseases, such as psoriasis, thyroid disease, or vitiligo, are more likely to get alopecia areata, as are those with allergic conditions such as hay fever. Types of alopecia areata include patchy alopecia areata, alopecia totalis, alopecia universalis, alopecia barbae, diffuse alopecia areata and alopecia ophiasis.

Treatment of alopecia areata

• Finasteride: treatment for male pattern baldness
• Minoxidil: treatment for male and female pattern baldness
• Tattooing: Tattoo used to look like short hair and eyebrows
• Topical immunotherapy: applied to bald patches
• Scalp reduction surgery: sections of scalp with hair are stretched and stitched together
• Artificial hair transplant

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (2012). Alopecia Areata under the chin, Licensed under a creative commons licence. Available for free at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alopecia_areata_unter_dem_Kinn.jpg (Accessed 22 May 2025).

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (2017). Alopecia Areata, Licensed under creative commons licence. Available for free at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alopecia_areata_1.jpg (Accessed 22 May 2025).