Leg alopecia in Patients with Coronary Heart Diseases in comparison with Healthy Control in Adult Males

Abstract

AbstractBackground: Coronary artery diseases are associated with varieties of dermatological conditions like psoriasis, lichen planus, androgenic alopecia, premature graying of hair, thoracic hairiness, diagonal earlobe crease and others.Objective: To determine the association of leg alopecia with coronary heart diseases in adult males' patients.Patients and methods: One-hundred forty male patients were included in this case-control study which conducted in Baghdad and Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospitals for the period from May 2009 through August 2010. The study sample was divided into two groups of patients. Each group included 70 male patients who are above 40 years. The first group (Group A) included patients with history of coronary heart diseases. The second group (Group B) included apparently healthy male persons as a healthy control. During interrogation with each individual a detailed history and physical examination were done. Patients were classified according to degree of hairiness of their legs into those with: - absent hair, diffuse hair loss leaving few scattered hair, partial hair loss where the loss was not uniform and sometimes patchy, and lastly leg with normal hairs. Results: The hair loss of legs was as follow: Group A: 75.71%, Group B: 44.28% and there was a statistical difference between two groups (p value= 0.0002). When the different age groups compared together, it was observed that leg hair loss increased with age in both Group A and B but in patients with coronary heart diseases hair loss was more and started at earlier age than healthy persons. Patients with coronary heart diseases who had hair loss from their legs tended to have weaker or even absent peripheral arterial pulses in comparison with patients in healthy control group (p value=0.0002). Hair follicles without hair shaft were more commonly and easily seen in the area of leg alopecia among healthy control while decreased or absent in the diseased group (p value=0.0008), while the broken hairs were more in healthy control than patients with coronary heart disease (p value=0.0008).Conclusion: Alopecia of legs was a statistically significant common problem among adult males with coronary heart disease patients. Also, leg alopecia started at earlier age in patients with coronary heart disease than healthy persons