Leucoderma Surgery in India
Certifications
Leucoderma or Vitiligo [white patches] is a long term skin condition that causes pale, white patches to develop on the skin. Vitiligo or leucuderma is an auto-immune condition, where the body’s own immune system may not recognize self and thus attack and destroy the melanocytes resulting in lack of melanin, the skin pigment which gives skin its colour and protects it from the sun. Melanin is produced by melanocytes, which are special cells in the skin.These white or pale patches can develop anywhere in the skin, but is more common in the areas that are exposed to the sun, like face, neck and hands. The pale patches can be small to begin with but may join to involve large areas. These are more easily visible in darker skins.
There are some surgical techniques that can benefit vitiligo in stable disease.
Melanocyte transplant
This is a new technique which involves grafting of melanocyte cell suspension Skin from an unaffected area is harvested and the layers separated by incubating with an enzyme called trypsin. Autologous epidermal cell suspensions allow large areas to be treated in one session using a small donor graft. They result in excellent colour matching. Melanocyte transplants have a very high success rate of 95 percent and this tecnique is being performed at image medical centre.
Skin grafting –This is a traditional technique in which,normal skin is used as donor tissue and then grafts are surgically transplanted on areas of vitiligo. The new skin grafts start producing pigment. The melanocytes in the normal transplanted skin continue to produce melanin thus providing pigment to darker the skin.Skin grafting has a high success rate — 80 to 90 percent in most patients.