P6.68 STUDY ON THE CLINICAL ASPECTS OF ANDROGENS ANS CORTICOIDS IN THE HAIR OF PATIENTS WITH FEMALE-PATTERN HAIR LOSS 

Bark-Lin Lew, Woo-Young Sim, Hyo-Jung Bang^1,2, Jeong-Ae Lee¹, Bong-Chul Chung¹, Won-Yong Lee²

Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Bioanalysis and Biotransformation Research Center, KIST,¹  Department of Chemistry, Yonsei University,² Seoul, Korea

Objectives: It is generally known that a high affinity of dihydrotestosterone for the androgen receptor causes male-pattern baldness by the increased activity of 5a-reductase. In case of female pattern hair loss, there is no persuasive theory until now. Androgens and corticoids are metabolized from the same precursor. Thus, we compared the levels of androgens and corticoids in hair from female pattern hair loss patients with normal samples using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.

Methods: We performed hydrolysis and extracted pregnenolone, 17a-hydroxypregnenolone, dehydroepiandrosterone, cortisone, cortisol, tetrahydro-cortisone, tetrahydrocortisols.

Results: The levels of pregnenolone, dehydroepiandrosterone, and cortisone in the hair were significantly different between female baldness and control subjects. In contrast, the amount of 17a-hydroxypregnenolone was similar between the hair of female patients and those of the controls.

Conclusion: We propose that the increased cortisone, pregnenolone, and dehydroepiandrosterone levels correlate to female baldness patients. Moreover, we infer that activities of 17a-hydroxylase and 17, 20-lyase influence the initiation of female baldness.