Additional methods for diagnosing alopecia and appraising their severity

The clinical diagnosis of hair diseases should be supported by objective techniques. In fact many methods are able to make advantage in some genetic syndromes with the aid of the microscope or to assess the severity of hair loss, or to distinguish a true disease from a visionary complaint of the patient. More commonly qualitative and quantitative methods are useful to distinguish androgenetic alopecia from telogen effluvium, or to recognize mild and initial cicatricial alopecias or the association of different forms of hair diseases. It is mandatory however the importance of the standardization of these technique in addition to identification of the normal values. Other techniques are essential to monitoring the effect of therapies for hair growth. Some of these methods are classified in non-invasive (pull test, wash test, daily count, phototrichogram), semi-invasive (trichogram and unit area trichogram) and invasive (biopsy).