Doxycycline for central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia: A single center retrospective analysis

To the Editor: There are no evidence-based studies that have critically evaluated the use of doxycycline in the management of central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA). Hence, we reviewed medical records of patients in the Mount Sinai Health System Data Warehouse with a histopathological and clinical diagnosis of CCCA (Supplementary Fig 1, available via Mendeley at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/gh24xc9v68/1). Demographics, clinical characteristics, treatment regimens, and treatment response characteristics including nonstandardized photography were analyzed. The analysis (n = 143) was divided into 2 treatment groups: group 1 (doxycycline ± topical corticosteroids/intralesional triamcinolone [ILTAC]; n = 115) and group 2 (topical corticosteroids ± ILTAC, n = 28). Females were overrepresented 95.6% in group 1 (n = 110) and group 2 (n = 28, 100%). African Americans accounted for 80% (n = 92) of the population in group 1 vs 89.3% (n = 25) in group 2 (Supplementary Table I, available via Mendeley at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/gh24xc9v68/1). Women in group 1, presented for evaluation 7 years after disease onset, compared to 4.9 years in women from group 2. The vertex and frontal scalp were more involved in group 1 (40%: n = 46) vs group 2 (35.7: n = 10). Patients in group 2 (n = 17, 60.7%) were more asymptomatic vs group 1 (n = 36, 31.3%) where pruritus (36.5%, n = 42) was the most common symptom. Letter from the editor: Making sense of central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA)Journal of the American Academy of DermatologyPreview Full-Text PDF