P-31   TRICHOSCAN: RESULTS USING 5% MINOXIDIL IN MEN WITH ANDROGENETIC ALOPECIA

R. Hoffmann Dept.of Dermatology, Philipp University, Marburg, Germany.

Hair loss or hair thinning is a common complaint and the effects of treatment attempts are hard to measure. Recently we have developed the TrichoScan as a method which combines epiluminescence (skin) microscopy (ELM) with automatic digital image analysis for the measurement of human, and potentially animal hair, in situ. The TrichoScan is able to analyze all biological parameters of hair growth with a so called intraclass correlation of approx. 91% within the same TrichoScan operator and an interclass correlation of approx. 97% for different TrichoScan operators. Herewith the power and accuracy of the TrichoScan is demonstrated by comparison of the hair parameters in 10 men with androgenetic alopecia (AGA) which were treated for 6 months with 5% minoxidil. Compared to baseline we were able to detect a statistically significant increase in total hair counts (189,6/cm2 vs.163,7/cm2; p = 0.067) and cumulative hair thickness (18,04 mm/cm2 vs 14,82 mm/cm2 p = 0.016) 6 months after treatment. Furthemore, we were able to detect an increase in terminal hairs (hairs thicker than 40µm) after treatment (175,1/cm2 vs.148,8/cm2; p = 0.082). These results show that the TrichoScan is able to measure significant changes of these hair parameters even after 6 months of treatment and in a rather small group of men trested with minoxidil.