Trichoscopy of diseases leading to cicatricial alopecia

Background Scarring alopecias show loss of follicular ostia or atrophy. Clinical inflammation is frequently, but not always, present. Histologic inflammation may be present. Ultimately, histologic confirmation is the best method to confirm the presence of a fibrosing/scarring process with loss of hair follicles. Objective The aim was to identify possible characteristic trichoscopic patterns of diseases leading to primary cicatricial alopecia. Patients and methods Trichoscopy was carried out on 100 Egyptian patients clinically diagnosed to have cicatricial alopecia. Patients were randomly recruited from the Dermatology Outpatient Clinic, Al Zahraa University Hospital. Patients were categorized according to the cause of primary cicatricial alopecia into eight groups. Results In this study, the authors had 100 patients. The authors reached the final diagnosis by clinical examination in 83 patients, and 17 patients had a differential diagnosis by clinical examination. When the authors applied the trichoscope on 100 patients, the authors reached the final diagnosis in 98 of them, and two patients still had a differential diagnosis by trichoscopy, so the authors did biopsy for those two patients, and histopathological examination resulted in the final diagnosis. Conclusion This study confirms that a handheld trichoscope is a very efficient and simple diagnostic tool of cicatricial alopecia.