Background:
Pityriasis alba, is a common benign skin disease occurring predominantly among children, often on their face. Clinically, the spots of pityriasis alba are off-white in color, round with poorly defined margins that bear scanty fine scales on it. No specific cause of pityriasis alba has been identified . In this disease, the number of melanocytes declines and melanosomes reduce within melanocytes. Vitamin D exerts its effect via the vitamin D receptor on melanocytes, if intracellular Ca2+ level decreases, this leads to high levels of reduced thioredoxin this, in turn, inhibit tyrosinase activity with the inhibition of melanin synthesis. In addition, the apoptotic activity of melanocytes reduces by the active form of vitamin D.
Aim:
The study aimed to assess the status of vitamin D for patients with pityriasis alba.
Materials and Methods:
44 patient diagnosed with pityriasis alba were enrolled and the second group of 44 controls was involved in our study. Serum levels of circulating 25 (OH) D were measured.
Results:
None of the cases had sufficient serum level; the level ranged between 8.1-27.3 ng/ml. The patients had lower circulating vitamin D levels than controls.
Conclusion:
Our findings in the present study are significant, but further studies with large samples are needed to correlate the extent and severity of pityriasis alba with vitamin D deficiency.
Alopecia areata (AA) is lost hair from a few or all regions of the body, for the most part from the scalp. Etiology and pathogenesis of alopecia areata being not totally comprehended, is accepted to be multifactorial in ancestry. Recently, studies suggested an association between alopecia and types of viruses, therefore we concerned to investigate the association between CMV infection and alopecia areata. This study included of 100 individuals (50 alopecia patients and 50 healthy). Mean age of study groups were 20.90 ± 11.07 and 22.64±12.29 years of cases and control group respectively. Mean of age onset of patients were 20.83 ± 10.0. Out of 50 patients 52{df6391716bcab23f197eab8ba5a452daee5812a1941604c42f67c7803ea6be47} were male, the rest were female. However, 1:1 of control group was male: female. 40{df6391716bcab23f197eab8ba5a452daee5812a1941604c42f67c7803ea6be47} of patients had a positive family history for this disease. Alopecia areata affected on scalp in 78{df6391716bcab23f197eab8ba5a452daee5812a1941604c42f67c7803ea6be47} of cases. All patients had a high concentration of CMV IgM. With treatment of oral ganciclovire drug, a decrease of anti-CMV IgM levels and an increase of CMV IgG levels were observed.
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