Abstract

Introduction: Telogen effluvium is one of the common causes of hair fall in women. It can be divided into acute and chronic; acute telogen effluvium lasts for a duration of less than 6 months while chronic telogen effluvium lasts for more than 6 months. Total body iron store is necessary for the growth and maintenance of hair follicles and their cycle. There seems to be some relationship between telogen effluvium and serum ferritin levels as many studies in past and recent years have shown.


Materials and Methods: The study is an analytical observational type of study and belongs to quantitative cross sectional prospective study. A total of 39 patients and equal number of controls were recruited for carrying out this study. All the patients were selected from the outpatient department of Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara, Nepal where as the controls were selected partly from the outpatient department and partly from volunteers. For the statistical analysis of the study SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) version 23 was used.


Results: The mean level of serum ferritin in patients was 23.53±28.66ng/ml and in controls it was 90.91±93.73ng/ ml. In order to find out the difference in significance we performed Independent t- test. After comparing the equality of means and variance, performing independent t- test, the p-value of <0.05 was observed, which meant that there was a significant difference between the serum ferritin levels of patients and controls.


Conclusion: There was a significant difference in the levels of serum ferritin when compared between telogen effluvium patients and controls. The findings of our study helped in consolidating our understanding of the diagnostic value of serum ferritin in cases of telogen effluvium.

Keywords: serum ferritin,, chronic telogen effluvium, hair loss