A case of localized Short Anagen Syndrome

We present a case of a Caucasian 4 year-old girl that comes to our attention because her hairs don’t grow. The growth defect is localized in frontal and occipital regions. The parents refer that the defect is present since birth and they never cut the hair of the frontal and occipital regions. The little girl, daughter of non-consanguineous parents, has brown hair with straight hair, whose frontal and occipital regions show a maximum length of 25 mm, shorter than the rest of the hair (Figure 1A, B). Physical dermatological examination reveals that eyelashes, eyebrows and other body hair are normal and there are not any dental or nail abnormalities. Psychic examination shows a normal general intellectual development. The child has a sister of 1 year without defects of her hair growth. There isn’t family history for hair loss or hair disease. Numerous laboratory tests are required, which are normal. The parents do not report abnormal fall of hair and pull test reported negative. We perform dermoscopic examination with videodermatoscope at magnifications of 30 to 150x. The dermoscopic examination of the frontal and occipital regions presents normally shaped hair, of different lengths, but all is not greater than 20 mm, typically with the tip cone, indicating that the hair was neither cut nor broken (Figure 2 A, B). The remaining regions of the scalp hair have with clinical and dermoscopic normal (Figure 3 A, B). Short Anagen syndrome is therefore diagnosed. In view of the international scientific literature, it was decided not to perform any treatment, keeping the patient in follow-up until puberty. Case-based review