Vitiligo and Surgical interventions in its treatment

Abstract

Vitiligo is not a very uncommon skin disorder in which scientists do not know the cause and eventually the treatment. Although it is a disease with almost no symptoms but the psychosocial impact is so immense that the patient seeks treatment from the very beginning of the white patches over his body. The condition becomes more measurable for women when we talk about third-world countries. In the Indian context, the prevalence of vitiligo is very high up to 4% in some areas which is a far high ratio than the global occurrence. Fortunately, several options of treatments are available in India especially Unani medicine which successfully cures a large number of patients. Besides drugs, Unani hakims used phototherapy as well. That's why the majority of vitiligo patients seek treatment from Unani hakims. CCRUM (central council of research in Unani medicine) an autonomous body that has pan India presence successfully treated thousands of vitiligo patients. Nevertheless, many patients are refractory cases that got little or no relief at all. These stable cases go for surgical options. In surgery, several successful methods developed by derma to surgeons. For example, grafting methods and melanocytes transfer. It is just to transplant grafts or cells from the patient normal area to the vitiliginous area. Here in this paper, we discuss such options for stable vitiligo.