Cyclosporine for Moderate-to-Severe Alopecia Areata: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial of Efficacy and Safety

The study evaluated the efficacy of cyclosporine compared to placebo in treating moderate-to-severe alopecia areata (AA) in adults aged 18 to 65 over 3 months. In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, 32 participants were analyzed (16 received cyclosporine and 16 received placebo). The cyclosporine group showed a higher proportion of participants achieving at least a 50% reduction in Severity of Alopecia Tool score (31.3% vs 6.3%) and improvements in eyelash (18.8% vs 0%) and eyebrow (31.3% vs 0%) scales compared to the placebo group. However, these differences approached but did not reach statistical significance. The study's small sample size and single-institution setting were noted as limitations.