Assessment, Reliability, and Validity of Trichoscopy in the Evaluation of Alopecia in Women

The study involved 200 women with various forms of alopecia and aimed to validate the use of trichoscopy as a reliable tool for diagnosing different types of alopecia. The results showed that trichoscopy had a high sensitivity (90%) and specificity (85%) in diagnosing and differentiating between androgenetic alopecia (AGA), alopecia areata (AA), and telogen effluvium (TE). There was a good agreement between trichoscopy and clinical diagnosis (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.824; 95% confidence interval, 0.756–0.892). The study concluded that trichoscopy is a non-invasive, quick, and reliable method for diagnosing alopecia in women, reducing the need for scalp biopsies. However, the study had a limited number of patients in each group of alopecia, which could have affected the assessment of all trichoscopic features.