Topical immunotherapy in alopecia areata: Anamnestic and clinical criteria of prognostic significance

Background: Topical immunotherapy of alopecia areata (AA) is an effective but time-consuming treatment with unknown long-term risks. Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify criteria which allow a selection of patients with a good prognosis for topical immunotherapy with diphencyprone. Methods: The anamnestic and clinical data of 50 successfully and 55 unsuccessfully treated patients were compared by the Mann-Whitney test. Results: Five factors were found to be of prognostic significance: type of AA (p less than or equal to 0.001), presence of nail changes (p less than or equal to 0.001), duration of AA before treatment (p less than or equal to 0.005), age at onset (p less than or equal to 0.01) and association with atopic eczema (p less than or equal to 0.02). Conclusion: A selection of AA patients who are likely to respond to topical immunotherapy is possible on the basis of anamnestic and clinical data.