ArticleClinical, cosmetic and investigational dermatology2023
Trichoscopic Features of Syphilitic Alopecia and Alopecia Areata: A Comparative Study.
Article in Clinical, cosmetic and investigational dermatology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Alopecia Areata in a Patient Undergoing Treatment for Secondary Syphilis: A Diagnostic Challenge.Cureus · 2026Article
- Clinical and trichoscopic features of early congenital syphilis: a single-center cross-sectional study.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Syphilitic alopecia (SA) and alopecia areata (AA) are two distinct conditions that frequently present diagnostic difficulties, especially when differentiating between them due to their similar clinical presentations. Trichoscopy may help in differential diagnosis, but a comparison between trichoscopic features of SA and AA is yet to be researched. Objective: To compare trichoscopic features between SA and AA and determine their discriminative values. Methods: Electronic medical records and trichoscopic images of patients diagnosed with SA or AA between January 2000 and February 2022 were retrieved. Trichoscopic features were statistically compared, and their discriminative values were demonstrated as sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, likelihood ratio, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Results: A total of 69 patients were included: 23 SA and 46 AA cases were matched with a 1:2 ratio. Black dots, broken hairs, pigtail hairs, exclamation mark hairs, tapered hairs, angulated hairs, and non-pigmented regrowing hairs were significantly more prevalent in AA than in SA (all P<0.05), whereas erythematous background was more prevalent in SA than in AA patients (P=0.008). Among the aforementioned trichoscopic features, exclamation mark hairs and non-pigmented regrowing hairs had a high positive likelihood ratio for AA (16.17 and 8.34, respectively); however, only exclamation mark hairs revealed high AUC (AUC=0.816). Conclusion: Despite the presence of several similar trichoscopic features between SA and AA, trichoscopy can aid in distinguishing between the two diseases. Exclamation mark hairs are the only trichoscopic feature that can be used to differentiate patients with clinically suspicious SA from those with AA.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.