ABSTRACT
Observation of hair roots by simple plucking is a comnon methad in trichology. But the plucking method is subject to artificial deformation of hair roots during the procedure and the possibility of the artifact may be greater when hair roots are in pathological state. Treatment of the scalp tissue with 1 M CaC12 permits epidermodermal separation and subsecuent harve.sting of hair follicles without any damage on the structures. To make sure if the possible artificial deformation of the hair roots of plucking method could affect significantly the overall evaluation of the hairs in alopecia areata, authors compared the results of plucking method(total 171 hair roots) with the results of CaCl2 method(total l94 roots) in 15 cases of alopecia areata. The sites of taking hair roots by the two rnethocds were located side by side at the edges of the bald areas. The results were as frllows: 1. The average percentages of actual dystrophic hairs in 15 alopecia areat.a patients are 55% by plucking method and 53% by CaCl2, method, thus showing no significant difference in overall evaluation of the hair roots. 2. The shapes of proximal hair shafts obtained by plucking were similar with the shape obtained by CaCl2 method.