Vitiligo is a medical condition in which the skin loses its natural pigmentation and develops colourless patches that soon cover the entire body, changing the person's complexion in those parts significantly. The exact causes behind the disease are not known yet, but most cases occur in patients with a family history of vitiligo, diabetes or thyroid disease.
Drastic alterations in the complexion can be traumatising for the patients, and hence the need for treatment is felt so urgently by them and their families. The cures are usually limited to halting or retarding the spread of the disease. However, re-pigmentation of skin is possible too for patients who have not seen any noticeable spread of the disease for more than two years.
The most common vitiligo treatment, PUVA, consists of the patient taking an oral psoralen compound, and two hours later the de-pigmented patch is exposed to UV rays or sunlight for a short period. This treatment provides a significant cosmetic improvement in over 60% of the cases.
Patients can also go for surgical treatments for vitiligo, which are becoming increasingly popular. Miniature punch grafting is normally part of all such treatments. Using a punch instrument, a surgeon takes a number of punches from the donor's skin, each around 2 mm in diameter, and grafts them on to the affected areas of the patient's skin. This procedure has to be followed by PUVA treatment to cause skin-pigmenting melanocytes to form again.
Suction blister grafting and ultra thin skin grafting, where a very thin layer of skin is grafted on to cause the transfer of melanocytes, are other grafting techniques that are used to treat vitiligo. Both of these yield noticeable cosmetic results.
Other kinds of treatments are also possible, both in standard medical therapies and alternative ones, whose success rates greatly vary. Moreover, with revolutionary developments in medical science, such as stem cell research, there is hope that a complete cure for vitiligo will be discovered soon. - 30415
Drastic alterations in the complexion can be traumatising for the patients, and hence the need for treatment is felt so urgently by them and their families. The cures are usually limited to halting or retarding the spread of the disease. However, re-pigmentation of skin is possible too for patients who have not seen any noticeable spread of the disease for more than two years.
The most common vitiligo treatment, PUVA, consists of the patient taking an oral psoralen compound, and two hours later the de-pigmented patch is exposed to UV rays or sunlight for a short period. This treatment provides a significant cosmetic improvement in over 60% of the cases.
Patients can also go for surgical treatments for vitiligo, which are becoming increasingly popular. Miniature punch grafting is normally part of all such treatments. Using a punch instrument, a surgeon takes a number of punches from the donor's skin, each around 2 mm in diameter, and grafts them on to the affected areas of the patient's skin. This procedure has to be followed by PUVA treatment to cause skin-pigmenting melanocytes to form again.
Suction blister grafting and ultra thin skin grafting, where a very thin layer of skin is grafted on to cause the transfer of melanocytes, are other grafting techniques that are used to treat vitiligo. Both of these yield noticeable cosmetic results.
Other kinds of treatments are also possible, both in standard medical therapies and alternative ones, whose success rates greatly vary. Moreover, with revolutionary developments in medical science, such as stem cell research, there is hope that a complete cure for vitiligo will be discovered soon. - 30415
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