On October 1, 2024, the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) codes for central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA) and frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) became effective for the first time. did. This is an important advance in the field of hair loss disorders.
Dr. Maria Hordinsky
“CCCA and FFA are conditions that require early diagnosis and intervention to prevent irreversible hair loss,” says Dr. McConlogue, professor of dermatology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and member of the Scarring Alopecia Foundation (SAF) board of directors. says Maria Hordinski, MD. said in an interview. “These new codes will make it easier for clinicians to identify affected patients and improve treatment outcomes. They will also make it easier for clinicians to identify affected patients and improve treatment outcomes. , it also opens the door to more robust research efforts, which could lead to new and more effective treatments in the future. Overall, this development will improve the care of people affected by these difficult conditions. It represents a positive step towards improvement.”
The new codes (L66.81 for CCCA and L66.12 for FFA) were approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 15, 2023, but will not be implemented until October 1, 2024 .
Dr. Amy McMichael
Amy McMichael, M.D., professor of dermatology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and scientific advisor to SAF, told Medscape Medical News that Itisha Jefferson, a medical student in Stretch Medicine at Loyola University Chicago, said: He said as follows. Her colleagues on the SAF Medical Student Executive Committee played a pivotal role in defending the Code.
In 2022, Jefferson, who has a CCCA, and her fellow medical students helped write a proposal that was ultimately submitted to the CDC.
“They were critical in working with CDC leadership to submit and process the necessary information,” McMichael said. “They were also great in bringing together a group of dermatologists to create the required presentations and guided all logistical issues to the finish line.”
On March 8, 2023, Mr. McMichael and Mr. Hordinsky argued the code directly at the CDC’s ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee meeting, with Mr. McMichael discussing CCCA and Mr. Hordinsky discussing FFA.
“We also discussed the lack of standardized tracking, which leads to misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment options,” Hordinski recalls. “We are improving clinical outcomes, ensuring patients receive appropriate treatment, better tracking disease prevalence, and leveraging electronic health records and other large-scale real-world evidence datasets. We emphasized the importance of clearly coding these symptoms to access and enhance epidemiological surveillance, and the result is a database that can contribute to health policy decision-making.”
Itisha Jefferson
To spread the word about the new code, McMichael, Hordinsky, and other members of SAF worked with the original team of medical students, some of whom are now dermatology residents. We are creating an information guide to send to academic societies and organizations. I supported the code. Publication in the dermatological literature is also planned.
As a medical student and after becoming a doctor, Jefferson said she will continue to advocate for patients with scarring alopecia. “We hope that externally led FDA Patient-Centered Drug Development (PFDD) meetings will be held for both CCCA and FFA in the near future, further advancing treatment and research for these diseases,” she said in an interview. .
McMichael, Hordinsky, and Jefferson had no relevant disclosures to report.
