The role of autoimmune thyroid disorders in patients with alopecia areata

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association of thyroid autoimmunity with alopecia areata (AA) by examining thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and thyroid autoantibody levels. In addition, to compare the epidemiologic data obtained with the data of our country. Methods: Our study was organized as a cross-sectional, retrospective study. The study was performed on patients between the ages of 2-65 years who were admitted to our outpatient clinic between 01.01.2008 and 31.12.2011, who were clinically or histopathological diagnosed with AA, examined for etiology and thyroid autoantibodies were requested. Patients under two years of age and over 65 years of age, patients with no thyroid autoantibodies and pregnant patients were excluded. Results were expressed as mean±standard deviation and median values. Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare TSH, anti-TG antibody (Anti-TG) and anti-TPO (Anti-TPO) antibody values in the variables of nail involvement, psychiatry, comorbidity and family history. Spearman correlation analysis was used to examine the relationships between age and disease duration and TSH, Anti-TPO and Anti-TG variables. Results: In our study, 65 (42.8%) of 152 patients were female and 87 (57.2%) were male. The ages of the patients ranged between 2-65 years and the mean age was 26.5±14.6 years. The mean age of females was 27.5±14.4 and 25.7±14.9 in males. Elevated thyroid autoantibodies were found in a total of 29 patients, 21 of whom were female and 8 of whom were male. Of these 29 patients, 10 had hypothyroidism, 2 had chronic thyroiditis and 3 had toxic multinodular goiter. 14 patients did not return after the examination at the internal medicine outpatient clinic, so the diagnosis of thyroid disease could not be reached. The mean TSH, Anti-TG and Anti-TPO values were 2.27±1.57, 29.2±99 and 71.5±2.2, respectively. When these values were analyzed separately as men and women, they were found to be 2.6±2.02, 41.8±1.23 and 134±2.8 in women and 1.99±1.03, 19.8±75.6 and 24.5±1.32 in men. There was a significant difference between men and women in terms of Anti-TG and Anti-TPO values (p=0.011 and p=0.001, respectively). A significant correlation was found between disease duration and Anti-TPO positivity (p=0.045); however, a similar relationship was not found between disease duration and Anti-TG positivity (p=0.34). Conclusions: As a result of this study, although there was a significant correlation between anti-TPO and duration of AA, the association between thyroid autoimmunity and AA was not found to be statistically significant. This may be due to the fact that humoral autoimmunity plays a role in thyroid autoimmunity and primarily cellular autoimmunity plays a role in AA. In addition, the epidemiologic data of our study were similar to the data of studies conducted in our country.