Alopecia Areata After COVID-19 Vaccines

January 2023 in “ Skin appendage disorders ”

Lucia Genco, Mariateresa Cantelli, Matteo Noto, Teresa Battista, Angela Patrì, Gabriella Fabbrocini, Maria Vastarella

Alopecia Areata autoimmune disease non-scarring hair loss Moderna vaccine Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine mRNA vaccine autoreactive T-cell clones AA hair loss COVID-19 vaccine

TLDR Some people with a history of autoimmune hair loss experienced worsening symptoms after COVID-19 vaccination.

The document is a case study of 5 patients (4 females, average age 32.4 years) who experienced Alopecia Areata (AA), an autoimmune disease causing non-scarring hair loss, after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations. Three cases occurred after the Moderna vaccine and 2 after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. All patients had a history of AA and were in disease remission before vaccination. The study observed an initial worsening of AA after the first vaccine dose, with disease stability even with subsequent doses. However, one patient experienced a "booster effect" with progressive and worsening alopecia with each vaccine booster. The document suggests that in an organism predisposed to autoimmunity, the mRNA vaccine could act as a trigger for the development of autoreactive T-cell clones. The authors stress the importance of COVID-19 vaccination and call for more extensive studies to understand this issue.

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