1. Introduction

Cicatricial alopecias are the result of various diseases of the scalp. It is usually circumscribed but may be widespread [1]. It presents as areas of hair loss in which the underlying scalp is scarred, sclerosed, or atrophic [1, 2]. In early stages, the underlying disease is usually diagnosable clinically and histologically, but in later stages, only scarring may be evident [3–5]. The scarring is the result of the destruction and fibrosis of hair follicles [1, 6, 7]. The primary cicatricial alopecias, which are the focus of this chapter, can be particularly challenging clinically. Several classification schemes for primary cicatricial alopecia exist in the literature. Workshop sponsored by the North American Hair Research Society, a working classification of primary cicatricial alopecias based on the predominant inflammatory cellular infiltrate was developed (Table 1) [8].

© 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons

Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and eproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


#### Table 1. Classification of primary cicatricial alopecias.
