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Vitiligo is a pigmentation disorder that affects the skin, causing it to gradually discolour. This discolouration can spread over the entire body, whitening the skin unnaturally. The exact causes behind the disease are not known yet, but most cases occur in patients with a family history of vitiligo, diabetes or thyroid disease.

The lack of social acceptance associated with the disease has hardly changed over the years, and this causes great agony for the patients who then end up desperately looking for a cure to this disease. Spreading of patches can either be stopped completely or their growth can be reduced through treatment. However, for patients who have not experienced spread of the disease for over two years, re-pigmentation of skin is also possible.

One of the most popular vitiligo treatments is PUVA, in which the drug Psoralen that reacts with ultraviolet light to cause darkening of skin is taken by the patient orally, and this is followed by carefully timed exposure of the affected area to sunlight or artificial ultraviolet light. This treatment has been shown to work successfully in more than half of the patients.

There are surgical options available as well for vitiligo treatment, which have been extensively used over the last few years. Miniature punch grafting is typically an integral part of surgical remedies for vitiligo. Multiple thin grafts of 2 mm diameter are taken from the donor by special punches and transferred on to the diseased area of the recipient through grafting. This procedure has to be followed by PUVA treatment to cause skin-pigmenting melanocytes to form again.

Ultra thin skin grafting, in which the affected area gradually starts pigmenting due to transference of melanocytes after a thin layer of skin is grafted on the area, and suction blister grafting are other types of the same basic line of treatment. These treatments too are found to work remarkably well in curing the disease.

There are a few other cures as well with different success rates, both in traditional and alternative medicine. Besides, a complete cure for vitiligo may soon be a reality, with researchers making significant progress in stem cell research.

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