Clinical efficacy analysis of 110 cases of childhood vitiligo with non-surgical combined therapy

Abstract

Background

Vitiligo has a negative effect on children’s physical and psychological health. Few studies have examined long-term treatment efficacy for childhood vitiligo. Therefore, we evaluated the long-term effectiveness of non-surgical combination therapy in pediatric patients with vitiligo and analyzed factors that affect its efficacy.

Methods

Pediatric patients (⩽12 years) with vitiligo who were treated with topical corticosteroids/topical calcineurin inhibitors and phototherapy for 12 months were retrospectively studied. Short-term systemic corticosteroids were administered according to individual clinical conditions. All lesions were photographed to assess repigmentation at 3-month intervals. Clinical data, the treatment effectiveness, and factors affecting the therapeutic effect were analyzed.

Results

Overall, 110 children (51 [53.6%] girls; mean [SD] age, 7.1 ± 3.0 years; 104 [94.5%] with activity status) were treated for a mean period of 23.13 ± 14.03 months (range, 5–86 months). The overall >50% repigmentation rate was 64.5%. A longer duration of treatment was associated with a higher repigmentation rate (X² _trend = 36.229, P < .001). The vitiligo disease activity score at the first visit was positively correlated with the overall repigmentation rate (r_s = 0.301, P = .001).

Conclusions

Treatment lasting longer than 1 year is recommended in children with vitiligo. The best repigmentation effect can be achieved by combination therapy in the rapid progression stage.

Keywords:

• Vitiligo
• childhood
• combined treatment
• VIDA score

Acknowledgment

We thank Angela Morben, DVM, ELS, from Liwen Bianji (Edanz) (www.liwenbianji.cn/ac) for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in figshare at http://doi 10.6084/mg.figshare.19755328. [AQ Abbreviations

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81773317).