Trichoscopic evaluation of frontal hairline recession in Egyptian female patients.

Background: Since frontal hairline is the most characteristic feature of the face for both men and women, affecting the psychological state of patients, hair loss has been considered to be one of the most prominent esthetic problems. Hair loss either resulting from the androgenetic or nonandrogenetic origin is characterized by changes in the anterior line.

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the causes of the frontal hairline recession in Egyptian female patients using trichoscopy and to detect the prevalence of each of those causes in Egyptian females.

Patients And Methods: This study was performed on a total of 200 Egyptian female patients aged between 15 and 65 years who complained of frontal hairline recession. All patients were derived from Al-Zahraa University hospital outpatient clinic over a period from November 2017 to April 2019. We classified them into two groups according to age: Group A: 15-45 and Group B: 46-65. After full history taking, general and dermatological examination, photographs of hair recession were taken from both frontal and temporal sides. Then, the trichoscopic examination by noncontact dermoscopy was done photographed and evaluated.

Results: The most common cause of the frontal hairline recession in Egyptian female patients was androgenetic alopecia (AGA) (50%). Most of the patients were of old age (58%). The high statistically significant trichoscopic findings in androgenetic alopecia were yellow dots, peripilar sign, hair diameter diversity, and single-hair pilosebaceous unit (45.0%, 61.0%, 100.0%, and 96.0%), respectively. On the other hand, perifollicular scaling, absence of hair follicles, and lonely hair revealed a high statistically significant presentation (88.9%, 100.0%, and 22.2%), respectively, with frontal fibrosing alopecia, and vellus hair (100.0%) and perifollicular casts (91.8%) with tractional alopecia. Finally, hair broken at different levels (100%), black powder (88.9%), black dots (100.0%), hook hairs (11.1%), i hair (16.7%),V sign (44.4%), flame hairs (33.3%), coiled hair (5.6%), and burnt match stick sign (5.6%) showed a high statistically significance presentation with trichotillomania.

Conclusion: The present study supports the trichoscopic criteria for the diagnosis of causes of frontal hairline recession, which provide a noninvasive diagnostic tool compared with histopathological diagnosis.