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Abstract
Prolactin is one of the major hormonal signals that are immediately upregulated upon psychoemotional and physical stress. It was found that high prolactin levels are associated with many autoimmune diseases. The relation between prolactin levels and prolactin receptor levels and alopecia areata (a tissue-specific autoimmune disease of hair follicles) represents an attractive area of research. To measure serum levels of prolactin and to detect the expression of its receptors in alopecia areata patients in an attempt to verify their possible roles in the pathogenesis of this disease. This study recruited 30 patients with alopecia areata and 20 age-and sex-matched healthy control subjects. Levels of serum prolactin and prolactin receptors were estimated by PCR technique. The correlations between serum prolactin levels as well as the prolactin receptor levels and age, sex, stress exposure, duration of disease and severity of alopecia areata were all assessed. When comparing between prolactin receptor level in AA patients and controls, it was found that it was significantly higher in patients (mean ± SD = 49.90 ± 18.29) than in controls (mean ± SD = 37.07 ± 19.30) (P = 0.02); but no significant difference in the serum level of prolactin was detected in patients (mean±SD = 9.44 ± 4.90) in comparison with controls (mean ± SD = 8.67 ± 4.07) (P = 0.56). In addition, correlating prolactin receptors in the patients to their SALT score showed a statistically significant positive correlation i.e. the greater the SALT score is, the higher the level of the prolactin receptors expressed in the lesion (P = 0.05). On the other hand, no statistically significant correlations were found between the prolactin receptors and the age of the patient, or the disease duration