الفهرس 
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Abstract
This case-control study was conducted to assess the association between IL-16 gene polymorphism and patients with AA attending outpatients’ clinic of Dermatology and Venereology Department, Suez Canal University Hospital, Ismailia, Egypt. Thirty-five patients of AA and 35 matched healthy controls were included in the study.
The mean age of the studied cases was 29.1±1.1 years with a range of 18-38 years, while the mean age of the control group was 28.9±2.3 years with a range of 19-37 years. The most common age of the AA patients was >30 years followed by 18-25 years. In alopecia patients, the female-to-male ratio was 1.1 (51.4% versus 48.6%, respectively). Approximately one-third (34.3%) of the patients were smokers in the study group, meanwhile 14.3% of the healthy controls were smokers (p<0.05). About 46% of the patients were employed, meanwhile 34.3% of them unemployed at all (e.g. housewives and students).
The mean disease duration was 2.02±0.38 years with a range of 1 month up to 9 years. The majority of the patients (91.4%) had progressive diseaseand 71.4% of them had ≤30% of their head affected by alopecia. Frontal and middle head alopecia was present in 91.4% and