Brief Answer: Melanocyte transplantation Detailed Answer: Hello and Welcome to healthcaremagic I am Dr. Kakkar. I have gone through your concern and understood it. Vitiligo is a condition characterized by the autoimmune destruction of melanocytes, resulting in loss of pigmentation. In vitiligo, there is a partial or total destruction of melanocytes, initially only of the epidermis and later even of the hair follicle, which acts as a reservoir for providing melanocytes during repigmentation. While medical therapies are the primary treatment(e.g topical steroids, topical immunomodulators lie tacrolimus, Topical PUVA, oral PUVA, NB-UVB phototherapy etc). There are some patients refractory to medical treatment. In such patients, surgical therapies can be used either alone or in conjunction with medical therapy to achieve repigmentation provided the disease is stable. Melanocyte transplant: -There are various ways to transplant melanocytes e.g either via punch biopsy grafts/minigrafts, suction blister grafts, ultrathin grafts OR Non-cultured epidermal cell transplantation where the donor tissue is digested with trypsin for direct application to the recipient site after the recipient site epidermis is removed surgically with either dermabrasion or laser. The main side effects that may be encountered with Melanocyte transplantation are: Cobblestoning with punch grafting/micrografting, graft rejection, scaring, milia, skip areas and depigmenated junctional zone etc. Various other surgical procedures apart from melanocyte transplantation that are available: - Introduction of artificial pigments into the lesions for permanent camouflage, e.g. tattooing. - Removal of the depigmented areas forever, e.g. excision with primary closure, and covering with thin Thiersch’s graft. - Therapeutically wounding the lesion to stimulate the melanocytes from the periphery and the black hair follicles to proliferate, migrate and re-pigment the lesion, e.g. therapeutic dermabrasion, laser ablation, cryosurgery (liquid nitrogen spraying), needling, and local application of phenol or trichloroacetic acid. Hope this answers your query regards

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