What are the common causes of Vitiligo?

The skin cells are otherwise called as the Melanocyte that produces melanin or colour. This melanin is the reason for having a normal skin tone and in Vitiligo patches, this is absent. The definite cause for this disease is still not known but it is defined as an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune disease, in this case, means that the immune system in a body attacks its own skin cells. People can suffer from other minor autoimmune diseases too. It can also happen genetically or due to emotional stress and sunburn. All these reasons are not scientifically proven yet.

 

Who is affected by Vitiligo?

Usually, people can be affected by this disease in their twenties. Young children may or may not be affected by this from their parents’ genes. Many estimations and statistics tell that vitiligo can affect people at any age and to all genders. It is quite common with people having a dark complexion. People having autoimmune diseases like thyroid can be affected too.

 

Is vitiligo hereditary?

About 20% of people having vitiligo disease have developed due to hereditary, so the disease does have a genetic basis. This doesn’t imply that every case is caused only by hereditary.

 

Types of Vitiligo?

Generally, there are two types of vitiligo:

• Segmental Vitiligo
• Non-Segmental Vitiligo.

Both of them are entirely different from each other. Here is a brief description of both the types.

 

Segmental Vitiligo or Unilateral Vitiligo

Segmental Vitiligo is also known as Unilateral Vitiligo which is non-symmetrical in nature. It is not very common and only 10% of people are there who have this type of vitiligo. But it is common in children and is characterized by one or more body parts that have lost melanin. It is usually seen in areas like legs, arm and face. This can result in whitening of hair also. It is associated with thyroid and other autoimmune diseases.

Usually, this segmental vitiligo lasts for a year and then stops. It has got a high response for surgical treatment because of its predictable stability.

 

Non-segmental Vitiligo

Non-segmental vitiligo is the most common type of vitiligo and affects 90% of vitiligo patients. It can either be focal or generalized. The focal is the evolving stage of non-segmental vitiligo while generalized is also known as Vitiligo Vulgaris. It is the condition that occurs on both sides of the body. It can begin from any part of the body like around the eyes, mouth, hands, wrist, fingertips or feet. When it begins, the patient will undergo rapid loss of skin colour at the start and stops after some time. They again start losing colour after some time at a rapid rate, this continues until the end of the patient’s lifetime.

There are high chances of developing Koebner’s Phenomenon which is a depigmentation symptom. As time passes, the colour loss intensifies and propagates to larger areas. Acrofacial and Mucosal vitiligo are also other types of generalized vitiligo. Like the names suggest, acrofacial means involving fingertips and face while mucosal involves lips and genitalia.