Impact of cyclosporin treatment on health-related quality of life of patients with alopecia areata.

INTRODUCTION

Alopecia areata (AA) is a disfiguring disease with substantial psychological burden. No studies explore the efficacy of pharmacotherapy through health-related quality of life (HRQoL) using both disease-specific and generic quality of life (QoL) instruments. We present the first study to elicit health utility from patients with AA and to evaluate the efficacy of cyclosporin in relation to HRQoL using both measures.

METHODS

Participants with moderate to severe AA from a placebo-controlled randomized trial investigating cyclosporin were administered the generic preference-based HRQoL instrument, Assessment of Quality of Life-8D (AQoL-8D) and the disease-specific HRQoL instrument, Alopecia Areata Symptom Impact Scale (AASIS). HRQoL was measured at each study visit and compared to baseline.

RESULTS

A number of 32 participants were analyzed. The mean health utility was 0.748. At 3 months, the cyclosporin group had trends for greater improvement in HRQoL across 6 of 8 AQoL-8D dimensions and 5 of 7 AASIS symptom domains compared to placebo. HRQoL was lower than Australian population norms across 6 of 8 AQoL-8D dimensions.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with AA had a mean health utility of 0.748. Treatment with cyclosporin 4 mg/kg/d for 3 months resulted in trends for improvement of HRQoL across multiple dimensions in both disease-specific and generic measures. Capsule summary The mean health utility for patients with AA was 0.748. Patients with alopecia areata have impaired health-related quality of life across 6 of 8 AQoL-8D dimensions compared to population norms. Treatment with oral cyclosporin for moderate to severe AA resulted in trends for improvement in QoL across multiple dimensions.