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

Different modalities have been tried in order to treat stable vitiligo. Culturing melanocytes is time consuming and expensive. Therefore, new methods using autologous melanocytes are sought. We aimed to compare the mixed noncultured autologous melanocytes of the outer root sheath and the bulge area of hair follicle transplantation plus dermabrasion with dermabrasion alone in stable generalized vitiligo patches repigmentation. Eight patients with stable generalized vitiligo were recruited. Two patches were selected and assigned to one of the study groups: one was treated with dermabrasion alone, and the other was treated with dermabrasion and transplantation. Uncultured melanocytes were extracted from the patients’ hair follicle outer root sheath and bulge. The patches were assessed monthly for the next six months. The primary outcome was to determine the percentage changes of the depigmented patches from the baseline. Although the repigmentation changes were statistically significant in transplantation patches, there was only one patch with good and another with fair pigmentation. Furthermore, seven patches without and one patch with poor pigmentation were observed as control lesions. The transplanted patches demonstrated a significantly better repigmentation rate in contrast to their controls (p=0.03). Although this method is fast and economic, the clinical response was not satisfactory.