Assessment of quality of life (QOL) of patients with androgenetic alopecia (AGA) has become increasingly important, both in order to evaluate the influence of the disease on patients and the therapy they require. We aimed to assess QOL in subjects complaining from AGA and evaluated the effects of various sociodemographic factors affecting their QOL. QOL was assessed in 400 patients with AGA and 100 controls using the World Health Organization Quality of life (WHOQOL‐BREF) questionnaire. Four domains (physical, psychological, social, and environmental) and two items (overall perception of QOL and health) of the WHOQOL‐BREF were the primary end points of this study. Patients had a lower QoL and less general satisfaction in all four domains of assessment than controls. The social impact was significantly higher in patients < 30 years of age (P = .003). Patients with severer form of AGA significantly had higher scores in all domains compared to those with less severe forms. Disease severity negatively impacted all the four domains significantly (P = .021). AGA harmfully affected the patient's QOL which warns the physicians to pay more attention to QOL impairment in patients of AGA for the better understanding of the disease burden on individual patients.

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BackgroundErectile dysfunction (ED) has common risk factors with many cardiovascular (CV) impairments. In view of these facts, hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcys) has been postulated for involvement in endothelial dysfunction.ObjectivesWe evaluated peripheral and penile homocysteine (Hcys) plasma levels before and after folic acid supplementation in idiopathic vasculogenic erectile dysfunction (ED) patients. Materials and methods: This study included 50 consecutive patients and 50 consecutive healthy controls that were recruited from December 2017 to December 2018. The patients received folic acid (FA) daily for 3 months and were evaluated by the abridged 5‐item International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF‐5) and penile duplex before and after therapy, in addition to plasma Hcys levels.ResultsOur study showed improvement in the severity of ED in our patients as all of them became mild to moderate ED after folic acid administration. Additionally, the median scores of IIEF‐5 significantly increased from 6 to 14, respectively (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the median peripheral and penile Hcys plasma levels (μmol/l) significantly decreased after folic acid administration as 39 patients with moderate ED and 11 patients with severe ED were 0.62, 0.34, 5.37, 0.37, respectively, became mild to moderate ED with their median peripheral and penile Hcys plasma levels became 0.19, 0.15, p < 0.001, <0.001, respectively. Peripheral Hcys level correlates significantly with penile Hcys before and after folic acid administration (r: −0.06 p: 0.8, r: 0.9, p < 0.001, respectively).Discussion and conclusionRecently, an emerging body of evidence suggests a role for Hcys and folate in erectile function. Interestingly, our interventional study is one of the first that evaluated the effect of folic acid supplementation on HHcys where it demonstrated a significant decrease in peripheral and penile Hcys plasma levels after folic acid administration. Thus, FA should be prescribed concomitantly with phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors in ED patients.

Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a common chronic dermatological illness that affects both men and women. 1 Throughout their lives, it impacts up to 80% of men and 50% of women. 2 It is characterized by gradual thinning, miniaturization, and hair loss at the afflicted locations. The extent and intensity of hair loss vary greatly between frontotemporal recession and residual occipital band, and patients may go through several stages in between. 3

Vitiligo affects 0.5-1% of the general population and represents the commonest depigmenting skin disease. 1 Therapeutic options available for vitiligo include topical and systemic immune-modulatory agents, surgery, cosmetic camouflage, and photo[chemo]therapy. Conventional phototherapies include psoralen and ultraviolet (UV) A (PUVA), broadband UVB (BB-UVB, 290-320 nm), and narrowband UVB (NB-UVB, 311-313 nm). 2 Targeted phototherapy uses special delivery mechanisms to target only the affected skin such as hand-held NB-UVB delivery systems, excimer laser, and excimer lamp. Two major types of machines utilize a xenon-chloride (XeCl) gas mixture to emit monochromatic excimer light (MEL, 308 nm) with almost equivalent efficacy: the