Childhood Alopecia Areata: What Treatment Works Best?
January 2011
in “
MOspace Institutional Repository (University of Missouri)
”
TLDR Topical immunotherapy with SADBE and DPCP is most effective for short-term hair regrowth in children with severe alopecia areata.
There were no validated effective treatments for alopecia areata (AA) in children. Topical immunotherapy using squaric acid dibutylester (SADBE) and diphenylcyclopropenone (DPCP) showed the most significant short-term hair regrowth in children with severe AA, based on 4 small individual cohort studies and 1 moderately sized retrospective case review. Intralesional steroids could induce hair regrowth greater than 50% in children with limited AA, according to 1 retrospective cohort study. Other treatments, including topical and oral corticosteroids, topical cyclosporine, photodynamic therapy, and topical minoxidil, showed no benefit over placebo, as evidenced by 14 randomized controlled trials and 3 within-patient studies.