Hair Distribution Width – A Novel Trichoscopy Parameter for Hair Miniaturization in Androgenetic Alopecia

May 2019 in “ Journal of The European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology ”

Ahmad Majd, Luis Santos, T. L. Chu, Joseph I. Shapiro, Harvey Lui, T. Randall Lee

hair distribution width HDW hair shaft diameter variation HSDV androgenetic alopecia AGA trichoscopy hair miniaturization hair loss

TLDR New method, hair distribution width (HDW), improves accuracy in diagnosing androgenetic alopecia (AGA).

The study proposes a new trichoscopy parameter called hair distribution width (HDW) to complement hair shaft diameter variation (HSDV) in diagnosing and monitoring androgenetic alopecia (AGA). HDW is defined as the percentage ratio of hair shaft diameter standard deviation over the mean, enabling it to capture subtle changes in hair diameter that would otherwise be missed by HSDV. The study compared the diagnostic performance of HSDV and combined HSDV+HDW for identifying AGA among 50 subjects with hair loss. The results showed that HSDV+HDW had a greater overall accuracy in diagnosing AGA than HSDV alone.

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Research cited in this study

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