Thymus Lymphocytes of the Peripheral Blood in Patients With Alopecia Areata

To the Editor.— Previous authors have reported depression of peripheral thymus lymphocytes (T-cells) in atopic dermatitis.1,2Atopic dermatitis is frequently associated with another autoimmune disease, alopecia areata (AA).3We evaluated T-cell levels in 60 patients with AA who were between the ages of 2 and 52 years. T-cell levels in AA were compared to 51 normal controls.4The mean percentage of T-lymphocytes in AA was 58.9% compared with the normal control population of 74.9%. The T-cell number per