148 Acquired Localized Heterochromia of scalp hair

Sewon Lee, Won-Soo Lee Department of Dermatology, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju, Korea

Heterochromia of hair is the presence of more than one distinct color of hair in the same person. Rarely, a circumscribed patch of hair of different colors occurs in several clinical settings, The condition generally has a genetic basis, although the mode of inheritance is not known. A 17-year-old Korean boy had had localized circumscribed patch of yellowish brown hair on the frontal and vertex scalp for 4 months. His scalp hair was straight, abundant, and normal in growth. But the proximal part of each affected hair near scalp surface was black and the hair color gradually changed peculiarly into yellowish brown color when it grows distally. Other parts of scalp hair and body hair were normal and black. The patient had never had a permanent wave or treated his hair with dyes or bleaching agents. The condition was not associated with past medical history or family history, and there was no history of exposure to special drugs or other chemicals. Routine laboratory tests and specific tests for metabolic disorders were negative or within normal limits. Studies using a transmission electron microscope revealed different shapes and numbers of melanosomes compared with normal eumelanosomes seen in regular mongoloid black hair. We report herein a boy with peculiar localized heterochromia of scalp hair of unknown etiology without familial background.