Addressing Misconceptions in Hair Loss Disorders, with Carolyn Goh, MD

During a presentation on alopecia management, which was held at the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annual Meeting, Carolyn Goh, MD, spoke in a section of the talk titled ‘Approaching the hair loss patient. ’

Goh, who serves as clinical associate professor of Dermatology at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, spoke in an interview with HCPLive regarding takeaways from her talk on addressing patients with alopecia as well as common misconceptions with hair loss disorders.

“I think one of the biggest things is that sometimes the hair loss patient is a big challenge for us as clinicians because there's so many questions,” Goh explained. “There are so many myths out there about hair, and it's a very personal issue for people. When their hair is falling out or they're losing it, they feel a loss of control. The whole takeaway is really to try to hone in on that part of it by giving them some component of the shared decision-making process that really puts control back into their hands.”

Goh highlighted examples such as putting in effort to establish rapport with patients suffering from alopecia, as well as defining goals of treatment more clearly with them. Goh also highlighted the importance of the exam and focusing on observations, as well as providing resources for patients.

“The there's some patient advocacy groups specifically for hair loss,” Goh said. “The 2 main ones are the National Alopecia Areata Foundation and the Scarring Alopecia Foundation. Those both have really strong patient education pieces. The National Alopecia Areata Foundation does a lot of fundraising as well and supports research, which has been pivotal in getting the drugs approved that we have now for alopecia areata.”

Goh was also asked about misconceptions she has observed in the field regarding alopecia, both in terms of patients and providers. She touched on the fact that many patients do not realize that alopecia refers to any kind of hair loss, though alopecia areata does not.

“That word, by itself, really does mean just hair loss of any kind,” Goh said. “So yes, when a patient shows up and then they say that they have hair loss, then they say and they're like ‘Do I have alopecia?’ Well, yes, you have a form of alopecia. But [also] a lot of people have taken that term alopecia to mean alopecia areata.”

For additional information on this topic, view the above video interview. To find out more from interviews at AAD, view our latest coverage.

The quotes in this summary of Goh’s interview were edited for clarity. Goh has reported personal fees from Pfizer and author fees from BMJ BestPractices.