About 25 % of patients had side effects of some kind but these were generally mild. Relapse was observed in two patients after 3 and 6 months but hair did regrow with treatment. It took an average of 5 months to get to the stage of excellent regrowth indicating that the regrowth can take time in these more challenging cases. Sharma’s study showed that patients who received treatment for the minimum 12 week study period had excellent growth in 63.3 % of patients. 3 patients in the study were children under 12 and were treated with dexamethasone on two day of the week at doses of 2.5 to 3.5 mg. They studied 30 patients with alopecica areata including a mix of adults and children. One of the important studies of dexamethasone use for treating alopecia areata was a 1999 study by Sharma and Gupta. Because of the long half life of dexamethasone compared to prednisone (54 hours vs 1-2 hours), the option exists to use dexamethasone less frequently in so called “pulses” rather than daily as in the use of prednisone. It has been studied in children with various medical conditions for well over 30 years. Oral Dexamethasone in Alopecia Areataĭexamethasone is an oral steroid that may be helpful in some cases of rapidly progressing alopecia areata. Many children and adults with alopecia areata regrow spontaneously so treatment is not always necessary. The last one is neither topical nor oral - and simply involves what I call “active observation:” (or what some might call doing nothing). Three of them are oral treatments and include oral methotrexate, oral oral steroids, and the JAK inhibitors.

Four of them are topical and include topical steroids, minoxidil, anthralin and diphencyprone (or squaric acid). In my practice, treatment of alopecia areata in children under the age of 12 involves use of 8 main treatments. One wants treatments that work really well and at the same time are really safe, affordable and easy to administer. The principles of treating alopecia areata in children is similar to treating alopecia in adults. Topical irritant and allergic therapies such as anthralin, diphencyprone and squaric acid are also important parts of the treatment ladder. This is by far the most common type of alopecia areata and so these three treatments are among the most useful.įor patients with more extensive and progressive alpecia areata, a variety of treatment options can be considered including oral steroids (dexamethasone, prednisone, prednisolone), and oral immunosuppressants such as methotrexate, tofacitinib, ruxolitinib, sulfasalazine. Generally speaking, topical steroids, steroid injections and minoxidil are important therapies for patchy alopecia areata (early staged disease). There are over 25 treatment options for alopecia areata. Oral Dexamethasone Pulsed Therapy for Alopecia Areata in Children

Alopecia universalis treatment 2015