CC-04   POLIOSIS CIRCUMSCRIPTA WITH UNILATERAL MANIFESTATION ON THE EYELASHES

TW Fischer, A. Michaelides, P. Elsner Department of Dermatology, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany.

Poliosis is a relatively rare abnormality of the hair and few cases are described. We present a 20 year old woman with a circumscribed poliosis of the eyelashes with mainly unilateral manifestation. A 20 year old Caucasian woman presented in our outpatient hair clinic with a 3 months history of whitening of the eyelashes of the right upper and lower eyelid. Very small parts of the left upper eyelash were also affected. The patient had no local symptoms of inflammation before or at the time of examination. She had no hair loss or hair depigmentation neither in the scalp region nor in the skin of the whole body. Signs of vitiligo were not found. The patient reported that the whitening of the eyelashes was completed within one week and after the initial incidence there was no further change. No other symptoms were preceeding the whitening such as viral respiratory infection, conjunctivitis, hypacusis or alopecia areata. The family history revealed neither autoimmune disease nor poliosis. Physical examination revealed a healthy 20 year old woman not taking any drugs. Blood, liver and kidney laboratory parameters were normal. The only abnormal values were positive thyroid antibodies (MAK, TAK) with very high titers while peripheral thyroid hormones and TSH were in normal range. The normal manifestation of poliosis is in the capillitium and an involvement of the eyelashes is very rare. Poliosis occurs in 80 to 90% after vitiligo and in about 50% after hair regrowth in alopecia areata affected regions. The disease is supposed to be an autoimmune reaction to melanocytes and it may be associated with other autoimmune diseases. Concomitant diseases can be also neurofibromatosis or M. Pringle. The rare Vogt-Koyanagi-Syndrome with fever and encephalitic symptoms, exsudative uveitis, dysacusis or deafness and following vitiligo was excluded in our case. It is also reported that 4-isopropylkatechol and hydrochinone may induce this autoimmune response, but our patient did not take any drugs. The only autoimmune phenomenon in our patient were elevated thyroid antibodies with no clinical signs of an autoimmune thyreoiditis.