What is vitiligo?
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What is vitiligo?
Vitiligo is a disease of the skin characterized by the appearance of white spots welldelimited that can progressively progress. It is a non-contagious disease, of autoimmune origin, that causes an alteration in the aesthetics of a person who suffers it.
What are its main causes?
The causes involved in the appearance of vitiligo, on the one hand there is an immunological alteration. It is known that immune cells, lymphocytes, are going to destroy melanin,melanocytes of the affected person. It is also known that there are genetic causes, there is a genetic predisposition, often relatives of people suffering from vitiligo, also suffer from vitiligo, and there are a number of alterations or factors that trigger this onset of vitiligo, of which not all are known.
What symptoms do you have?
Vitiligo is characterized by the appearance of white spots, spots lacking melanin on the body surface. It is most likely to affect areas of the body surface such as the elbows, such as the areas of the hands, feet, knees, perioral area or eyelids are characteristic zones. In these areas of lack of pigmentation the skin is unprotected and is more exposed to the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation. They are spots that are not symptomatic, are not pruriginous, but that they cause an important alteration in the quality of life of the person.
Who is affected by this disease?
It is a relatively frequent disease, about 1% of the population suffers from vitiligo in oneshape or other. It is equally common in men and women and may appear from thechildhood or you can make an adult debut. Those in which he makes his debut in adolescence or childhood tend to have a greater genetic background than those in which he makes his debutadult
What treatments are there?
Although we do not have a 100% curative treatment of vitiligo, we do have differentmethods to correct or attempt to correct these alterations in the pigmentation ofthe skin. Of all of them, phototherapy is the most effective and within the phototherapy is of choice thenarrow band UVB and the 308 nanometer eximer laser. With these treatments, in weekly sessions, we get very important repigmentations of the skin, the pigmentation of the skin, reversing the normal color in these people.
