Disease Burden, Clinical Management, and Unmet Treatment Need of Patients With Moderate to Severe Alopecia Areata: Consensus Statements, Insights, and Practices From CERTAAE Delphi Panel

The study, involving a 2-round Delphi panel with 23 dermatologists from Russia, Türkiye, Poland, and Czechia, aimed to understand the burden and management of moderate-to-severe Alopecia Areata (AA) in these countries. It concluded that AA significantly affects the quality of life (QoL) of patients and their families, especially when lesions appear in visible areas other than the scalp, leading to higher work and productivity impairment in adults. The consensus among dermatologists was that skin biopsies and trichoscopy are important for diagnosis, but there is a need for better severity scoring systems. Current treatments like topical therapies, corticosteroids, and systemic immune modifiers were found to be insufficient, indicating a substantial unmet medical need. The study calls for access to novel treatments and more research to develop effective therapies with acceptable safety profiles, aligning with global research on the psychosocial impact of AA and the necessity for standardized treatment protocols.