Alopecia Areata Associated With Retinal Disease Development

A study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology determined that patients with alopecia areata (AA) have a higher risk for developing retinal disease than patients without AA.

Researchers aimed to investigate AA and retinal disease association by performing a retrospective cohort study that recruited participants from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. Patients with AA and matched controls were included to determine retinal disease risk. In total, 9909 patients with A and 99,090 matched controls were included in the analysis.

Patients with AA had a higher risk for developing retinal disease than controls with an adjusted hazard ratio of 3.10 (95% CI, 2.26-4.26) for retinal disease. The risk for developing retinal detachment, retinal vascular occlusion, and retinopathy were all higher in the AA group than in the control.

“Patients with AA had a significantly higher risk of retinal disease than controls. Further studies are needed to clarify the pathophysiology of AA and retinal diseases,” concluded the study authors.

Reference
Ting HC, Ma SH, Tai YH, et al. Association between alopecia areata and retinal diseases: A nationwide population-based cohort study. J Am Acad Dermatol. Published online October 31, 2021. doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2021.10.045