Henry Ford News
Skin Transplant Offers New Hope to Vitiligo Patients
March 9, 2010
CONTACT: David Olejarz
dolejar1@hfhs.org
313.874.4094
Skin Transplant Offers New Hope to Vitiligo Patients
Before and After Photos available at www.flickr.com/photos/hfwbh/
DETROIT – In the first study of its kind in the United States, Henry Ford Hospital showed that skin transplant surgery is safe and effective for treating vitiligo.
Henry Ford researchers followed 23 patients for up to six months after surgery and found that the treated area regained on average 52 percent of its natural skin color. In eight patients with a specific type of vitiligo, the treated area regained on average 74 percent of its natural skin color.
The surgery involves using skin cells taken from normally-pigmented areas of the body and transferring them to the damaged area of skin. It is performed under local anesthesia.
“This surgery offers hope to vitiligo patients,” says Iltefat Hamzavi, M.D. a senior staff physician in Henry Ford’s Department of Dermatology and the study’s senior author and principal investigator. “The results achieved in our study were of obvious significance to our patients.”
The study will be presented Tuesday, March 9 at the 68th annual American Academy of Dermatology meeting in Miami.
While the initial results are preliminary and the procedure is still investigational, Dr. Hamzavi says Henry Ford hopes to offer the surgery as part of its treatment portfolio this fall. He says for some patients the surgery is more effective than standard treatments like light therapy and topical medications.
“Patients of color and those with vitiligo on one side of the body and in one area of the body may benefit most from this procedure,” Dr. Hamzavi says.
Vitiligo is a skin disease that causes the skin to lose color and develop white patches that vary in size and location. It affects about 1 in every 200 people in the United States, and is more noticeable in people with darker skin.
Vitiligo develops when cells called melanocytes are killed by the body’s immune system, causing the area of skin to turn white because the cells no longer make pigment. While there is no cure, vitiligo can be treated and managed with light therapy, creams and topical medications.
The surgery is known as melanocyte-keratinocyte transplantation or MKTP, and is performed in Europe, Asia and Middle East. It was performed at Henry Ford using the same technique developed by MKTP pioneer Sanjeev Mulekar, M.D., of the National Vitiligo Center in Saudi Arabia. Henry Ford is the first to perform MKTP in North America.
In Henry Ford’s study, 32 patients (18 male, 14 female) underwent surgery and ranged in age from 18 to 60. A total of 40 MKTP procedures were performed and researchers analyzed the outcomes of 29 of them. A procedure lasted 30 minutes to two hours and patients returned home the same day.
Of the 32 surgery patients, 23 were followed for up to six months after surgery. Eighteen patients received one treatment, four patients received two and one patient received three. The ethnicity of patients was Caucasian, South Asian, African American and Hispanic.
During MKTP, melanocyte cells, which produce pigment in the skin, hair and eyes, are harvested from an area of healthy skin and separated to make a skin cell mixture. This mixture then is applied to the treatment area and covered with a specially developed adhesive biologic dressing.
Treated areas included the hands, arms, legs, feet, face and stomach. The average size of the treated area during each procedure covered an area of 46 cm2, or roughly the size of a credit card.
The study was a collaboration with the National Center for Vitiligo, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and funded by the Shahani Foundation based in Michigan.
is there anywhere in the UK that does this surgery??
does anyone know can i get the transplant in the uk(england)
my dad recently got a Hair Transplant, it was very expensive but the results are worth it…;
I have had vitiligo for 4 years. It hasn’t really bothered me and I’ve done nothing about it. But now I’m concerned because it is starting to show up on my face.
I’m looking into buying a untraviolet UVB handheld wand. I have a couple of questions:
Is this ok to use on face?
Do you have any recommendations of where to buy the wand?
Thanks!
Tina
This treatment is not new it has been in Sweden for many years and some other countries has catch up , it is in India too. First off all your vitiligo must be stabile other wise it is easy that it will be attacked again, even if the transplantation takes some hours , the pigment comes gradually after some months.
It is indeed a good progress.
One time completely and 2 times at least %90-95 in my areas I could manage the regain my color back they all came back once I gave up sun bath and psorolen pills. So I don’t know what to think with the rate of success but seemed to me again like primary school. I recently consider IV Glutathione what will shade the difference by whitening the rest of my skin complexion. I don’t mean that is nothing but we could get around %75 with PUVA, narrow band did nothing to me just emptied my pocket and wasted time. The best I found is psorolen pills and sun bath but need to be done for at least 2-4 months and carefully without exceeding time more than 1 minute each day, 3 days in a week. I have never get any advice by derm. to do so but never every get any little progress by doing what they wanted me to do maybe only because they can not empathize every individuals situation and can not make sure how serious we may apply sun bath with extreme care so..
Its coming Mary … I can smell it i never got excited about treatments till now..this made me feel the same way u did.. finally my mind is at peace a little and it doesnt feel like im having a heart attack anymore haha.. to excited for words
wow wow wow…this is very exciting for all of us!! We are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. It seems more and more countries are advanceing themselves in performing this procedure. This is so great for those of us that live in the U.S. and Canada.
I have only had Vitiligo for one year. I used to get up in the morning an feel scared about my future and wonder what I will look like in 10 years.
Not anymore, everyday it seems that I read about a new advancement in treating this disease. I’m not scared anymore, I wake up with hope now.
I’m so thankful to people like Natalie and others who take the time everyday to find this information for all of us. It relieves some of the stress that we all carry and that may make our Vitiligo spread.
I,m so grateful for this site.
God Bless.
Mary