WASHINGTON – Almost 41% of black women surveyed described hair loss that was consistent with central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA), but only about 9% said they had been diagnosed with the condition, Dr. Yolanda Lenzy reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology.
In a video interview at the meeting, Dr. Lenzy of the University of Connecticut, Farmington, discussed the results of a hair survey she conducted with the Black Women’s Health Study at Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center. Nearly 6,000 women have completed the survey to date.
“For many years, it was thought to be due to hair styling practices,” but there are new data showing that genetics can be an important cause, she said, referring to research from South Africa indicating that CCCA can be inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion.
Dr. Lenzy, who practices dermatology in Chicopee, Mass., used a central hair loss photographic scale in the study, which also can be helpful in the office to monitor hair loss and “to quantify how much hair loss a person has … in terms of: Are they getting worse? Do they go from stage 3 to stage 5 or stage 1 to stage 3?”