Nail involvement in patients with moderate-to-severe alopecia areata treated with oral tofacitinib

Background: A few anecdotal case reports demonstrated that tofacitinib improved nail changes associated with AA. Objective: To investigate nail changes in patients with AA treated with tofacitinib and evaluate the relationship between nail and hair responses to tofacitinib. Methods: This is a retrospective study of 33 adult patients with moderate-to-severe AA treated with oral tofacitinib monotherapy for at least 4 months. Results: Fifteen patients had nail involvement and demonstrated more severe hair loss than those without nail involvement (p = .040). However, there was no significant difference in hair regrowth between two groups. Of 15 patients with nail involvement, 11 (73.3%) showed improvement regardless of type of nail change; the first improvement was observed at a median of 5 months (range, 1-11) after administration. Nail improvement was associated with neither initial severity of hair loss nor hair response to tofacitinib. Nail improvement tended to occur later than hair regrowth. Conclusions: Oral tofacitinib monotherapy improves nail involvement associated with AA. Nail involvement is not a poor prognosis factor in hair regrowth with tofacitinib treatment and there is no evident relationship between nail and hair responses.