Pediatric alopecia areata treated with oral tofacitinib

Abstract

Alopecia areata (AA) is an autoimmune condition and is the most common cause of nonscarring alopecia in children. There are various treatment options for AA depending upon the severity and age of presentation, but they have limited efficacy and undesirable side effect profiles. Janus kinase inhibitors are a newer group of drugs with proven efficacy and safety. But there are only a very few studies published on the usage of Janus kinase inhibitors in the pediatric population. We had four children with AA treated with oral tofacitinib from September 2023 to November 2023. Clinical characteristics, clinical response, SALT scores, and side effects were evaluated. All four patients demonstrated significant improvement in SALT scores from 55% to <10% in all patients at a treatment duration of 6 months. Children did not have any significant side effects in our study except for minor GI side effects in one child. So we concludeTofacitinib can be considered as a treatment option in treatment-resistant cases.