Case Report on Acupuncture Treatment for Long-standing Alopecia Areata

A 61-year-old male patient with a six-year history of alopecia areata was treated with a specific acupuncture protocol. The case report, authored by figshare admin karger and last updated in May 2026, details a treatment regimen of 55 sessions over nine months leading to complete resolution. The 832.0 KB PDF document includes clinical assessment using the Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT).

Use Cases

• Analyze the efficacy of a specific acupuncture protocol based on the described plum-blossom needle tapping and circumferential needling techniques.
• Study long-term treatment outcomes for chronic alopecia areata based on the nine-month, 55-session intervention timeline.
• Examine the application of the Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) for clinical assessment in a single case study.
• Investigate potential therapeutic mechanisms for acupuncture in autoimmune conditions based on the described migratory pattern of hair loss.

Strengths

• The case report provides a detailed, longitudinal account of a nine-month treatment with 55 total sessions.
• Clinical assessment is standardized using the Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT), with a reported score of 15.
• The dataset is openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0, permitting reuse and redistribution.

Limitations

• The dataset is a single case report (n=1), which limits generalizability and statistical power.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• The authors note a lack of baseline laboratory assessments, limiting mechanistic insight.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Clinical case documentation.

Time Range

Covers a nine-month treatment period for a single patient.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-15 05:55:14; freshness should be verified.