Jan 28, 2009 9:00 am US/Eastern
Laser Treatment Offers Hope For Vitiligo Patients
Skin Condition Causes Pigment To Become Lighter In Spots
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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If you remember the King of Pop from his "Thriller" days, you might notice that his skin tone was what you would expect for an African-American. Today? Michael Jackson is as pale and milky white as a ghost. (File)
CBS
Imagine developing a condition where you start to lose the color in your skin. It's called "vitiligo" and it affects millions of people in this country.
If you remember the King of Pop from his "Thriller" days, you might notice that his skin tone was what you would expect for an African-American. Today? Michael Jackson is as pale and milky white as a ghost.
What happened is he developed the skin condition, vitiligo, reports CBS station WCBS-TV.
"We think that Vitiligo is an autoimmune process where the body actually destroys the pigment cells," says Dr. Bruce Katz of the Juva Skin and Laser Center. "So, people eventually end up losing pigment, in extensive cases, all over their body."
And if you're dark-skinned, it can be terribly disfiguring. Creams and UV light treatments to replace the pigment cells have been mostly ineffective. So some people, like Jackson go the other way, bleaching the rest of their skin to match the white areas
"I'd never heard of it before, and when I was about 20 years old I noticed a spot right on my, underneath my chin here," says a local vitiligo patient named Jeff, who didn't want to use his last name.
Jeff is not as severely affected by it, but he has it on his neck, hands, and elbows.
"Absolutely it bothered me. I thought it was going to get better, [but] it spread and got worse," he says.
Now Jeff is having one of a series of 8 to 10 laser treatments for his vitiligo. It's a quick and painless procedure that actually stimulates new pigment cells to develop in the white areas.
"We found that in our patients with vitiligo, about 70 to 80 percent of the people actually get their color back," says Dr. Katz.
"It helped me a lot on my face. It's least effective on my hands, but on my face it's helped a lot," says Jeff.
It may take up to 10 treatment to re-pigment the area. The cost can run to over $1,000, but the effect seems to last. However, you can still develop new areas of vitiligo and they would also need treatment, of course.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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