Many individuals with alopecia areata (AA) have comorbid conditions, according to a retrospective cross-sectional study. The authors compared the prevalence of comorbid conditions in patients with AA with the prevalence of comorbid conditions in patients in the Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Follow-up Study.
The association between AA and comorbid conditions was consistent with findings from previous studies.
Kathie P. Huang, MD, from the Clinical Research Program, Department of Dermatology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues report their results in an article published online May 22 in JAMA Dermatology.
“Our descriptive study aimed to characterize the comorbid conditions associated with AA in the Boston patient population seen at the Partners institutions during an 11-year period. The [Automated Retrieval Console] program, which harnessed properties of artificial intelligence and systematic natural language processing, allowed us to select a group of 2115 patients with AA.
These patients were initially screened on the basis of their [International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision] codes, and their diagnosis was confirmed by using our innovative program, which created a model based on manual review of records,” the authors explain.
The study had the advantage of…
Read the rest of this article at Medscape: Alopecia Areata Associated With Autoimmune Comorbidity
