Efficacy of Oral Apremilast in the Treatment of Alopecia Areata at the Tertiary Care Hospital, Karachi.

Efficacy of Oral Apremilast in the Treatment of Alopecia Areata at the Tertiary Care Hospital, Karachi.

Alopecia areata (AA) is a disease characterized by hair cycle dysfunction and the presence of peribulbar and perifollicular mononuclear cell infiltrate.1 The majority of patients report the rapid onset of one or several well-defined, usually round, 1 to 4 cm areas of scalp hair loss. A common feature is the presence of "exclamation-mark" hairs that are broken and short hairs that taper proximally.

Commonly used treatment modalities are steroids (intra-lesional, topical or systemic), contact immunotherapy, anthraline, minoxidil, calcineurine inhibitors, topical retinoids, systemic immune modulating agents, photo-chemotherapy, dermatography wigs and hypnotherapy etc Apremilast is a newer drug. It is an oral small-molecule inhibitor of phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4), this may be effective treatment for a variety of inflammatory skin disorders such as alopecia areata.

Due to its increasing prevalence and lack of local data on its long term management, the investigators designed current study On Efficacy of Oral Apremilast in Alopecia areata in-order to evaluate its effectiveness.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Either gender.
• Age 20-70 years.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients with history of connective tissue disorder, vasculitis, seropositive and seronegative arthritis
• Patients with history of psoriasis.
• Patients excluded from the study will be patients having history of previous treatments with some systemic agents