Impact of pharmaceutical care in management and treatment of Vitiligo

Vitiligo also known as leukoderma is an acquired de-pigmentary disorder characterized by the appearance of white patches resulting from the loss of functional melanocytes and melanin from the skin with worldwide prevalence of approximately 0.1 to 8%. It most often affects the face elbows and knees hands and feet and genitals and is more noticeable in darker-skinned people because of the contrast of white patches against dark skin. The exact etiopathophysiology of Vitiligo is not clearly known but some main theories exist to explain it: the autoimmune hypothesis the neural hypothesis the self-destruct hypothesis (auto cytotoxic) biochemical oxidative stress melano-cytorrhagy and decreased melanocyte survival hypotheses. different treatment modalities of vitiligo like steroidal treatment chemo-phototherapy vitamin D analogues pseudo catalase vitamin B12 surgical therapy and herbal treatments. Although there are numerous medical and surgical interventions available to treat vitiligo there is no study showed a definite treatment measure.Therefore more randomized controlled trials on the treatment of vitiligo are necessary.Keywords: Vitiligo Autoimmunity Melanocyte