Concurrent Eosinophilia Increases the Prevalence of Nail Abnormalities and Severity of Hair Loss in Patients With Alopecia Areata.

Background

The potential link between alopecia areata (AA) and eosinophilia is unclear, as well as its clinical manifestations in these patients' subsets.

Methods

This is a monocentric retrospective observational study in which clinical and laboratory data were summarized and evaluated the AA subset with concurrent eosinophilia.

Results

In a sample of 205 AA patients, 38 (18.5%) were classified as AA with eosinophilia. Interestingly, this subset of patients had a statistically higher prevalence of atopia and nail abnormalities (p < 0.05) than AA without eosinophilia. AA patients with eosinophilia had a 3.70 higher odds of more severe hair loss versus age- and gender-matched AA without eosinophilia.

Conclusions

AA patients with eosinophilia had distinctive clinical and laboratory characteristics, so future studies may potentially explore the use of IL-5 inhibitors.