Systematic review – alopecia areata and tofacitinib in paediatric patients

Abstract

Introduction

Alopecia Areata is a nonscarring hair loss disorder and is the most common hair loss cause in children. It is a chronic autoimmune disorder with a severe psychological impact in patients’ lives. JAK inhibitors, in particular Tofacitinib, have been having promising results on Alopecia Areata Treatment. In this study we aimed to do a Systematic Review on the role of Tofacitinib (either orally or topically), considering efficacy and safety, in treating children with Alopecia Areata.

Materials and methods

PubMed, Cochrane and Web of Science databases were searched (up to 1st of September of 2021) looking for Tofacitinib (all text/all fields) and MeSH/Keyword term Alopecia Areata.

Results and conclusions

We included 14 studies and 64 cases in the Systematic Review. From these, 12 were considering systemic administration (47 patients) and two were considering topical administration (17 patients). Responsiveness was as high as 81.3%. The responsiveness was similar among different genders (78.6% in males and 80.0% in females) and either whether administration was topic (70.6% responsiveness) or systemic (85.1% responsiveness). Adverse effects were rare and, when present, were mild. Studies shows promising results in what considers the efficacy and safety of Tofacitinib in the treatment of Alopecia Areata. As the available evidence to date is of low quality, further randomised studies are required to confirm these findings.

Keywords:

• Alopecia areata
• paediatric
• tofacitinib
• Janus kinase inhibitors
• safety

Disclosure statement

The authors do not report any conflict of interest.

The authors declare that no funding was gathered concerning this study.

Authors contribution

A.B. and A.A.T. conceived the presented idea. A.B. and S.M. developed the theory and wrote the manuscript. A.B. and S.M. performed the research and review of the articles included in the systematic review. S.M. encouraged A.B. to investigate safety records of use in Paediatric Patients. S.M. and A.A.T. supervised the findings of this work. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.