title: Alopecia totalis: is treating nonresponder patients useful?
abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of different treatments in patients with alopecia totalis or universalis who did not respond to sensitizing therapies. Twenty-six patients, who had been receiving sensitizing therapy for at least 1 year without any response, were randomly assigned to receive the following treatments: topical 10% cyclosporine in oily solution (eight patients), PUVA (eight patients), and intravenous thymopentin (ten patients). None of them had any acceptable regrowth after at least 6 months of treatment. Our results suggest that other treatments are not useful in patients with 100% hair loss who fail to respond to sensitizing therapies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University of Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tosti
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bardazzi
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guerra
mesh_terms: D000287:Administration, Topical; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000505:Alopecia / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy*; D003524:Cyclosporins / Q000008:administration & dosage; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007275:Injections, Intravenous; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010778:Photochemotherapy; D011897:Random Allocation; D016305:Thymopentin / Q000008:administration & dosage
chemical_list: D003524:Cyclosporins; D016305:Thymopentin