Treatment with Oral Vitamin D Alone, Topical Minoxidil, or Combination of Both in Patients with Female Pattern Hair Loss: A Comparative Clinical and Dermoscopic Study

This review offers evidence-based recommendations for diagnosing and treating female pattern hair loss, emphasizing clinical assessment and starting treatment with minoxidil, while noting that measurement of certain hormones and vitamins is optional.

In this study, researchers found that a low-cost USB dermoscope can effectively detect microscopic hair changes associated with early female pattern hair loss, making it a useful tool for diagnosis even without expensive equipment or programs.

This study observed that while both minoxidil and botanically-derived 5-alpha reductase inhibitors significantly increased hair count and diameter in women with female pattern hair loss, minoxidil was more effective, especially for greater hair diameter increases, but had more troublesome side effects.

This article reviews the clinical assessment of female pattern hair loss and discusses up-to-date treatments, highlighting oral minoxidil combined with oral spironolactone as a promising novel therapy. It emphasizes the crucial role of general practitioners in diagnosis, treatment planning, and managing associated psychosocial issues.

This review suggests that decreased serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels may play a role in different types of non-scarring alopecia, but further studies are needed to explore vitamin D supplementation as a therapeutic option.

This study found that women with female pattern hair loss had significantly lower serum Vitamin D3 levels compared to healthy controls.

This study observed that many female pattern hair loss patients had concurrent conditions such as telogen effluvium, hypothyroidism, and hypertension, with a significant percentage having low Vitamin D levels.

This review discusses the various roles of vitamin D in skin disorders, including established use in psoriasis and potential applications for atopic dermatitis and skin cancer prevention, but reports no new clinical results.

This review explores the impact of vitamin D deficiency on the skin from a dermatological perspective, but reports no new clinical results.

This study found that women with female-pattern hair loss had significantly lower serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D compared to healthy controls, but it does not establish causation.

This study found that low serum ferritin and vitamin D2 levels are associated with hair loss in females with chronic telogen effluvium and female pattern hair loss, suggesting potential benefits of screening and supplementation.

This case report describes a 7-year-old boy with alopecia areata and reduced vitamin D receptor expression whose condition improved after using calcipotriol, a strong vitamin D analog.

This review examines the functions of vitamin D and its receptor in skin and explores how these are regulated, reporting no new clinical results.

This article outlines the potential for upregulating the vitamin D receptor in treating hair disorders, emphasizing the need for further studies to evaluate vitamin D's role in the hair cycle.

This study found that trichoscopy criteria can distinguish female androgenic alopecia from chronic telogen effluvium, with specific features achieving 98% diagnostic specificity.

This study found no significant association between the degree of male-pattern baldness and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in healthy middle-aged and older men.

This case report describes how a 53-year-old woman with female pattern hair loss experienced further hair regrowth when topical minoxidil was added to her spironolactone treatment after initial results plateaued.

This review discusses advances in protecting against chemotherapy-induced alopecia and reports no new clinical results; calcitriol and cyclosporine A emerged as promising agents in animal models with broader efficacy across multiple chemotherapy drugs.

This article reviews the mechanisms by which minoxidil stimulates hair growth and reports no new clinical findings.