Relationship between severity of acne vulgaris and androgenetic alopecia (baldness) in men

Due to the common pathogenesis of acne and androgenetic alopecia, many studies have been performed on the association of acne with alopecia in women, but this study tries to evaluate the relationship between the severity of acne and alopecia in men.

This descriptive-correlational study was performed on 150 male patients with acne referred to the clinic of Imam Reza Hospital, Mashhad. The diagnosis of acne was made based on the clinical picture and by examining the patients, the severity of acne, the presence of alopecia in the person and its severity were evaluated. The severity of acne was divided into five degrees: mild, moderate, relatively severe, severe and very severe, depending on the type, number and location of the lesions. The severity of alopecia was divided into seven degrees according to the Hamilton-Norwood classification system. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests were used to analyze the data and the relationship between variables was assessed using Spearman correlation coefficient.

There is a correlation between the severity of acne and the severity of alopecia and due to the positive correlation coefficient with increasing severity of acne, the severity of alopecia also increases and this relationship is significant. (P-value=0.018 and rs=0.218)

In our study, there was a significant relationship between the severity of acne and the severity of alopecia, so that with increasing severity of acne, the severity of alopecia increases.