Combined therapy for resistant vitiligo lesions: NB-UVB, microneedling, and topical latanoprost, showed no enhanced efficacy compared to topical latanoprost and NB-UVB.

ABSTRACT

Vitiligo is depigmenting disorder of the skin and mucous membranes but despite various therapeutic options, complete and satisfactory treatment of vitiligo still remains a challenge. Therapeutic success also varies depending on the localization of lesions; hands and bony prominents are considered to be resistant to treatment. We investigated feasibility of treating resistant bilateral symmetrical vitiligo vulgaris and acrofacialis lesions with combination of narrowband UVB and topical prostaglandins (0.005% latanoprost solution) with or without Dermaroller 0.5 mm needle length-assisted microneedling. Frequency of repigmentation onset was generally low (37.8%) and pronounced repigmentation was infrequently seen (26-50% repigmentation in 20.8%, and >50% repigmentation in only 8.8% of repigmenting lesions). Our study, however, showed that latanoprost can be used in combination with NB-UVB phototherapy to induce repigmentation in some vitiligo lesions in resistant-to-treatment location, while addition of skin microneedling seems not to improve the treatment outcome and possibly needs modification.