A group of specialists at the University Hospital of Navarra has shown that it is possible repigment chronic forms, localized and stable vitiligo, a degenerative disease of the skin where the cells responsible for pigmentation, melanocytes die and stop producing melanin.
They have done by transplanting the patient’s own epidermal cells of a pigmented area on certain areas which appear depigmented. “The novelty of this method is that we grow epidermal cells in monolayer on a substrate of amniotic membrane,” explains Pedro Redondo, Pamplona center of that dermatologist and director of the work whose results were published in the official magazine of the British Association of Dermatologists. As noted, his team has treated ten patients with stable vitiligo by transplantation of these cells, and all have achieved high success rates, “witha repigmentation of 75 to 100 percent of the affected area.
As stated by Felipe Prosper, area director of the Clinical Cell Therapy, the treatment of vitiligo by this new technique begins with the cultivation of epidermal cells and keratinocyte-demelanocitos mixture, to then proceed to make selective crops. “To date there were no jobs in monolayer cultures of melanocytes because they had not found adequate support to achieve them,” says Prosper. In addition, Redondo stresses that “the best indication is the treatment of targeted areas, who have not responded to conventional medical treatments.
