Fibroids and hair loss might be linked, according to a US study

African-American women who suffer from hair loss, particularly central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA) are more at risk of developing uterine fibroids.

That’s the conclusion of a study published in the scientific journal American Medical Association

(https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/article-abstract/2665390), which highlighted that African-American women who suffer from CCCA are up to five times more likely to develop leiomyomas.

The research, conducted at the John Hopkins University Hospital of Baltimora, examined over 487,000 women over a four-year period: 447 of them (accounting for 0.9% of the sample), suffered from alopecia (CCCA), 13.9% of whom had uterine fibroids, compared with 3.3% of women with fibroids who did not suffer from alopecia.

So what is the association between these two pathologies? According to the scientists who conducted the research, fibroids and alopecia might develop in similar ways, sharing the same kind of excess scarring and tissue fibrosis.

For the time being, the study does not specifically identify the cause of the association between CCCA and uterine fibroids and actually highlights some doubts as to whether this can go for the population on the whole. Further studies must be conducted at other centres, involving non African-American women too, in order to shed light. The authors of the study themselves reckon that “doctors should have CCCA patients undergo screening to assess the possible presence of uterine fibroids, finding out whether those women suffer from period pain, heavy menstrual bleeding, unexplainable anaemia or have difficulties getting pregnant”.