Researchers from Ajou University Medical Center (AUMC) and Eureka Skin and Laser Clinic have confirmed the clinical benefits of the skin seeding technique (SST) in treating vitiligo in children.

Vitiligo is a skin disease that appears as white spots when the pigment cells that produce melanin are lost, and the skin color becomes white.

While it is not easy to treat vitiligo, the recent development of combo therapy consisting of oral and topical medicine, ultraviolet rays, and excimer laser has improved treatment results.

However, there was a high unmet medical need for intractable vitiligo as it hardly responded to any of these treatments.

As a solution, the team, led by Professors Kang Hee-young at AUMC and Kim Dong-seok at Eureka Clinic, conducted a study to confirm the efficacy of SST in treating intractable vitiligo in children.

SST is a treatment procedure that uses a 0.4 to 0.5 mm micropunch machine to extract very fine skin from normal skin and transplant it into the vitiligo-affected area.

The research team performed SST on 83 pediatric patients with intractable vitiligo.

As a result, more than 75 percent of the vitiligo lesions in eight out of 10 patients achieved a therapeutic effect of restoring pigmentation.

Also, the team confirmed that the prognosis for treatment was better for lesions located on the face and neck, and the lesions did not spread for more than a year.

Notably, the team stressed that its SST procedure greatly increased patient convenience compared to the conventional suction epidermal transplantation as it only takes about 30 minutes and is almost painless.

Also, the procedure can be performed in all areas, including joints and curved areas.

“Having vitiligo causes severe stress, regardless of gender or age,” Professor Kang said. “Notably, the trial is especially significant as it confirmed good treatment effects in intractable pediatric patients who did not respond to conventional treatment.”

The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology published the study results in its February edition titled “Treatment outcomes and prognostic factors of motorized 0.5-mm micropunch grafting with a skin-seeding technique for 83 cases of vitiligo in children.”