Clinical Evaluation of Postoperative Pressure-Induced Alopecia Using a Hand-Held Dermatoscope
March 2014
in “
International Journal of Dermatology
”
TLDR A hand-held dermatoscope helped differentiate between pressure-induced alopecia and alopecia areata in a young patient, who then experienced hair regrowth within a month.
The document reports a case of a 5-year-old girl who developed pressure-induced alopecia following an eight-hour liver transplantation surgery. She presented with a 4 × 10 cm patch of hair loss on the occiput without pain, erythema, scaling, or atrophy. Dermatoscopic examination using a hand-held dermatoscope revealed black dots and broken hairs but no tapering hairs or yellow dots, which are characteristic of alopecia areata (AA). Histopathological examination confirmed the absence of peribulbar inflammatory infiltrate, supporting the diagnosis of postoperative pressure-induced alopecia. The patient experienced spontaneous hair regrowth within one month. The authors suggest that scalp dermatoscopy can differentiate between pressure-induced alopecia and AA, as the absence of yellow dots and tapering hairs may indicate the former. However, they recommend further investigation before generalizing this observation.
