Non-cultured autologous melanocytes of outer root sheath and bulge area transplantation for repigmentation of the stable generalized vitiligo patches: a pilot study

Background: Different modalities have been tried in order totreat stable vitiligo. Culturing melanocytes is time consumingand expensive. Therefore, new methods using autologousmelanocytes are sought. We aimed to compare the mixed nonculturedautologous melanocytes of the outer root sheath andthe bulge area of hair follicle transplantation plus dermabrasionwith dermabrasion alone in stable generalized vitiligo patchesrepigmentation.Method: Eight patients with stable generalized vitiligo wererecruited. Two patches were selected and assigned to one of thestudy groups: one was treated with dermabrasion alone, andthe other was treated with dermabrasion and transplantation.Uncultured melanocytes were extracted from the patients’ hairfollicle outer root sheath and bulge. The patches were assessedmonthly for the next six months. The primary outcome was todetermine the percentage changes of the depigmented patchesfrom the baseline.Result: Although the repigmentation changes were statisticallysignificant in transplantation patches, there was only one patchwith good and another with fair pigmentation. Furthermore,seven patches without and one patch with poor pigmentationwere observed as control lesions. The transplanted patchesdemonstrated a significantly better repigmentation rate in contrastto their controls (p=0.03).Conclusion: Although this method is fast and economic, theclinical response was not satisfactory.