The Hindu : Clinic for vitiligo treatment in city

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Clinic for vitiligo treatment in city

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD Jan. 20. A clinic for treatment of vitiligo or acquired leucoderma, formation of white patches on the skin, is being started in the city.

It will offer patients the melanocyte transplantation, a technique to treat leucoderma developed by two Swedish doctors, Mats Olson and Lennart Juhlin. This technique is based on separation of melanocytes (pigment cells) from a small piece of the skin (5cm X 2 cm) and transplanting them over a relatively large area of the affected skin.

Talking to reporters here on Monday, Vivek Bhatt, a consultant surgeon of Noble Vitiligo Clinic, Bangalore, said the clinic would be functional at Ashkin Hospital in West Marredpally and patients with large and stable patches of leucoderma, post-burn white patches and chemical leucoderma could look forward to getting normal skin colour.

Leucoderma was prevalent in more than two per cent of India's population and no other country, barring Mexico, had such high incidence. There were three reasons for destruction of melanocytes - genetic, auto-immunity and segmental wherein an offending nerve releases substances that destroy the cells. He said the success rate of treatment for stable patches was nearly 80 per cent and pigmentation normally started three to six weeks for pigmentation after the procedure, he said.

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