Surgical Management of Vitiligo

Although vitiligo has traditionally been very difficult to treat, a new breakthrough surgical treatment is expanding options for practitioners and patients. Standard treatments depend on the severity of the condition and the patient's feelings of disfigurement. Cover-up cosmetics work well for some people. Other more sophisticated forms of treatment include gradually developing color back in the depigmented areas (repigmentation) by PUVA or other ultraviolet light treatments, but this is extremely slow and intensive, often requiring several hundred treatments. This new form of treatment, which involves surgically transplanting melanocytes into the white areas, is most suc…