Vitiligo Treatments
Westville Hospital offers a wide range of treatments for vitiligo including phototherapy, excimer light, medical and surgical therapies.
Topical treatments
The following topical treatments are available:
Stocked in practice:
Vitix
Viticolor
Available on prescription from a pharmacy:
Protopic
Elidel
Topical steroids
Phototherapy
Narrow band UVB
Used for extensive areas of vitiligo
Treatment is performed 3 times a week – Mon, Wed, Fri.
Many months of treatment is required.
Excimer laser/light
Excimer light is used for limited areas of vitiligo.
It is a form of targeted treatment, treating only involved areas and sparing the normal skin.
Excellent repigmentation is seen with this form of treatment.
The practice has just acquired a state of the art Excimer Light from Germany.
Melanocyte Grafting
The donor site (usually the thigh) is cleaned with hibitane.
The site is injected with local anaesthetic
A very thin piece of skin is removed and soaked in trypsin (an enzyme that digests protein) for one hour in an incubator
After one hour, the piece of skin is removed from trypsin and washed. The melanocytes are then scraped off the piece of skin.
The resulting fluid is centrifuged
The melanocytes gravitate to the bottom of the test tube.
Surplus fluid is removed from the test tube leaving a melanocyte rich fluid behind.
The vitiligo skin is denuded with a microdermabrader.
The melanocyte rich fluid is transferred to the denuded vitiligo skin.
The site is dressed and left undisturbed for a week.
Pigment cells slowly populate the area and depigment the vitiligo skin.
Get a free online consultation
For online consultations, please phone 079 562 3251
Visit our facility
Suite 202, Westville Hospital, 7 Spine Road (now Harry Gwala Road), Westville, 3630, South Africa
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