الفهرس 
VITILIGO
Diabetes mellitusOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
V
itiligo is a common acquired heritable melano-cytopenic disorder characterized by progressive, well circumscribed, cutaneous white macules, ocular abnormalities, auto antibodies, and a high incidence of associated disorders. It occurs worldwide, with an estimated incidence of 1% with a peak of onset at 10-30 years, both sexes and all races are equally affected. However, vitiligo can be psychologically devastating affecting quality of life, self-esteem, marriage, and employment, especially in darker-skinned individuals and in certain cultures because of confusion with leprosy and other contagious skin diseases.
The etiology of this disorder is not clear; it is a multifactorial polygenic disorder with a complex pathogenesis. It reflects a systemic process that has important implications beyond the skin. These include other autoimmune diseases and ocular and neurological abnormalities.
In our study, we aimed to evaluate the level of serum homocysteine and compare it with healthy subjects in order to investigate the role of homocysteine in the pathogenesis of vitiligo.
Homocysteine is a non-essential sulfur-containing amino acid derived from methionine. In normal metabolism, the amino acid homocysteine is very toxic; it is immediately converted into cysteine or remethylated back to methionine. The production of toxic reactive oxygen species by homocysteine oxidation, together with other biochemical abnormalities in vitiligo as in biopterin metabolism lead to oxidative stress, the accumulation of melanocytotoxic compounds and an inhibition of natural detoxifying processes that may contribute to the destruction of melanocytes in vitiligo skin.
In this study, we could not demonstrate a difference in serum Homocysteine levels between vitiligo patients and controls, but there was a significant difference between patients and healthy controls in homocysteine level from induced bulla.
We recommend further studies on larger number of patients as well as different distribution patterns of the disease in relation to serum homocysteine level.