Vitiligo is a Disease ?

Vitiligo or leukoderma is a condition in which your skin loses melanin, the pigment that determines the color of your skin, hair and eyes. Vitiligo occurs when the cells that produce melanin die or no longer form melanin causing slowly enlarging white patches of irregular shapes to appear on your skin.
The main sign of vitiligo is pigment loss that produces milky-white patches (depigmentation) on your skin. Other less common signs may include:

* Premature whitening or graying of the hair on your scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows or beard
* Loss of color in the tissues that line the inside of your mouth (mucous membranes)
* Loss or change in color of the inner layer of your eye (retina)

Although any part of your body may be affected by vitiligo, depigmentation usually develops first on sun-exposed areas of your skin, such as your hands, feet, arms, face and lips. Although it can start at any age, vitiligo often first appears between the ages of 20 and 30.

Causes

Vitiligo occurs when melanin — the dark pigment in the epidermis that gives your skin its normal color — is destroyed or not produced. The involved patch of skin then becomes white. Why this occurs isn't known.


Doctors and scientists have theories as to what causes vitiligo. It may be due to an immune system disorder. Heredity may be a factor because there's an increased incidence of vitiligo in some families. Some people have reported a single event, such as sunburn or emotional distress, that triggered the condition. However, none of these theories has been proved as a definite cause of vitiligo.

Treatment

There are a number of ways to alter the appearance of vitiligo without addressing its underlying cause. In mild cases, vitiligo patches can be hidden with makeup or other cosmetic camouflage solutions. If the affected person is pale-skinned, the patches can be made less visible by avoiding sunlight and the sun tanning of unaffected skin. However, exposure to sunlight may also cause the melanocytes to regenerate to allow the pigmentation to come back to its original color.

The traditional treatment given by most dermatologists is corticosteroid cream.

Phototherapy may also beneficial using exposure to long-wave ultraviolet (UVA) light from the sun or from UVA, together with Psoralen, called "PUVA", Or with UVB Narrowband lamps (without Psoralen), can help in many cases. Psoralen can be taken in a pill 1-2 hours before the exposure or as a Psoralen soaking of the area 1/2 hour before the exposure. Lately, PUVA is being more and more replaced with exposure UVB Narrowband light at a wavelength of 311-313 nanometers. This treatment does not involve Psoralen since the effect of the lamp is strong enough. The source for the UVB Narrowband UVB light can be special fluorescent lamps that treat large areas in a few minutes, or high power fiber-optic devices in a fraction of a second.

Studies have also shown that immunomodulator creams such as Protopic and Elidel also cause repigmentation in some cases, when used with UVB Narrowband treatments.

Alternatively, some people with vitiligo opt for chemical depigmentation, which uses 20% Monobenzone (monobenzylether of hydroquinone). This process is irreversible and generally ends up with complete or mostly complete depigmentation.

In late October of 2004, doctors successfully transplanted melanocytes to vitiligo affected areas, effectively repigmenting the region. The procedure involved taking a thin layer of pigmented skin from the patient's gluteal region. Melanocytes were then separated out and used to make a cellular suspension. The area to be treated was then ablated with a medical laser, and the melanocyte graft applied. Three weeks later, the area was exposed to UV light repeatedly for two months. Between 73 and 84 percent of patients experienced nearly complete repigmentation of their skin. The longevity of the repigmentation differed from person to person.

References :
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitiligo
2.http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vitiligo/DS00586/DSECTION=6

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