Vitiligo
Created: 09.01.2025
Updated 09.01.2025
Approved by: Consultant Dermatologist, Dr James Denny
What is Vitiligo?
Vitiligo is a skin disorder in which white patches of skin appear on different parts of the body. This happens because the cells that produce melanin, which is responsible for skin, eye, and hair colour, die or stop functioning.
Why do you get Vitiligo?
Vitiligo usually occurs in early adulthood and affects men and women equally often. It is often found in families and is probably an autoimmune disease and possibly related to other types of autoimmune diseases such as lupus. The cause is a loss of melanocytes, the cells that contain the dye melanin and make your skin darker when you sunbathe.
What are the treatments?
Light treatment (phototherapy) has been shown to delay the spread of vitiligo and topical treatment of the skin with immunosuppressive creams or steroids may confer some benefit.
Ruxolitinib (Opzelura) is a new topical biologic therapy called a JAK inhibitor which is arriving in the UK any day now and will be available to you as soon as it does. How beneficial this will be is not clear.
Most people who get vitiligo try to avoid the sun because they do not want a tan that makes the white areas clearer. This may not make a significant difference for people with darker skin, for obvious reasons.
Aside from the this, cosmetic camouflage is also a mainstay option.
What is the prognosis?
Vitiligo that occurs locally on a small area of the body is most often self-limiting. In most cases, it stabilises quickly and does not spread further.
Vitiligo on larger parts of the body, on the other hand, can continue to develop over several years before it stabilises, but can then begin to spread again. Vitiligo that affects the entire skin is extremely rare.
