Pune: Vitiligo, commonly known as Leucoderma, is a pigmentary disease, which causes white/light colour patches on skin due to absence or reduction in the number of skin colour producing cells (melanocytes). It has immense socio-psychological ramifications, causes cosmetic disability and is associated with a lot of misconceptions and stigma, like being contagious and genetic. However, it is treatable with ultraviolet light (phototherapy), medication and surgery.

The department of dermatology at Command Hospital, Southern Command, Pune, has been performing a new modality of treatment of this cosmetically disabling illness by a method called the Non-Culture Epidermal Cell Suspension Melanocyte Transfer which has now become a standard for treatment of Vitiligo. Command Hospital is one of the first Armed Forces Hospital to pioneer the treatment with great success and is now training the post graduate students in this modality of treatment. Subsequently, matching in a short duration, it has been adopted as a standard line of treatment in the care hospitals across the country. The procedure involves taking a skin patch from the patient’s healthy skin and then preparing an Epidermal Cell Suspension which is spread over the hypo pigmented patch.

The department of dermatology at Command Hospital, established in 1869, has been involved in many cutting edge developments in the specialty over the years over the years and now also has a number of research projects in the pipeline. The care available here is aimed at all age groups from the tiny new-born to the veterans and elderly who all develop some dermatological ailments or illnesses as the aging of the skin occurs.