Male pattern baldness or androgenetic alopecia is diagnosed with the help of a classification system using diagrammatical representations of progressive hair loss.
Nowadays the most widely used is the Norwood scale.
Originally classified by Dr. James Hamilton in the 1950’s with eight degrees and seven types of baldness, it was modified to its current form by Dr. O'Tar Norwood in the 1970’s, adding four degrees more and defining them as variant type “A”, indicating that this variation only affected 3% of the cases studied.
Norwood’s basic scale to determine the type of baldness or male pattern androgenetic alopecia.
- TYPE I - Indicates minimal hair loss.
- TYPE II – Loss of hair with small recessions in the frontotemporal area of the scalp.
- TYPE III - Is the first level a dermatologist would consider to be baldness and would apply a treatment. In this stage the recession is more profound in the frontotemporal area. The areas affected either do not have any hair or are covered with scarce hairs.
- TYPE III Crown – Hair loss which affects the posterior part of the hair with a very limited line of recession in the frontotemporal area.
- TYPE IV – In this type, the hair loss is more extensive than in Type III, with scarcely any or no hair in the superior part of the head.
- TYPE V – In this type the crown is still separate from the frontotemporal area, although this separation is no longer so evident as the strip of hair along the top of the scalp has become thinner and hair has become scarcer.
- TYPE VI – Is when baldness on the crown joins together with that of the frontotemporal area becoming one sole area of baldness.
- TYPE VII – Is the most severe form of hair loss, there only remains a strip of hair in horseshoe shape which begins in front of the ear and extends behind the scalp and neck.
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