Table of Contents
What is the trichoscale?
It is a scalp scan.
What is the purpose?
The trichoscale can measure the prevalence of hair loss and the proportion of sick hair. If the patient has a treatment for hair loss, this examination can measure its efficiency.
When to do a trichoscale?
When the patient wants a treatment for hair loss or is willing to do a hair transplant, this checking may also be helpful for hair growth abnormalities suspicions.
What does it research?
The trichoscale measures:
- surface, number, and density of the hair strands
- the average length of hair
- anagen/telogen ratio (how much hair is growing and dead).
- hair thickness
- the number of follicular units (helpful for hair transplant)
- Number of hair strands per follicular unit
How does it work?
The biologist shaves and dyes a small part of the scalp (about one centimeter of diameter).
He takes a reflected light microscopic picture of the area. This picture is zoomed up to 20 times. To know the anagen/telogen ratio, the biologist takes another shot 48 hours after shaving.
A cutaneous imagery software analyzes the pictures.
It automatically calculates the various analyzed parameters. It is helpful for the doctor’s diagnosis.
Good to know
- The checkup is pain-free lasts 20 to 30 minutes.
- Patients should not wash their hair at least 48h before the appointment and not brush it the day before the checkup.
