Updates and new medical treatments for vitiligo (Review).

Vitiligo is a multifactorial disease characterized by the loss of skin pigment, which results in achromic macules and patches. There are currently several medical treatments available, which aim to arrest progression and induce skin repigmentation. These treatments alone or combined have exhibited varying degrees of pigmentation, and the majority are safe and effective. All therapies for vitiligo are limited, and no known treatment can consistently produce repigmentation in all patients. Individualized treatment is appropriate according to the location, clinical presentation and the presence of disease activity. The present review summarizes the medical treatments available for vitiligo: Systemic and topic pharmacological therapies, physical and depigmentation treatments. Several treatments are still underway and have not yet been approved. However, due to the promising preliminary results, these are also mentioned in the present review.

Novel immunological and genetic factors associated with vitiligo: A review.

Vitiligo is a skin disorder characterized by depigmentation of the skin due to a lack of melanin. This condition affects men and woman of all ages and its incidence is not restricted by ethnicity or region. Vitiligo is a multifactorial disease, in which melanocytes, which serve important functions in skin pigmentation and immune processes, are impaired. There is sufficient evidence that immunological and genetic factors are primarily responsible for the destruction and dysfunction of melanocytes. Therefore, genetic DNA sequence variants that participate in skin homeostasis, pigmentation and immune response regulation, as well as altered expression patterns, may contribute to the risk of developing vitiligo. The current review presented an overview of the mechanism of pigmentation and of currently known factors involved in depigmentation, as well as the classification, epidemiology, associated comorbidities, risk factors, immunopathogenesis and several genetic and molecular changes associated with vitiligo.

Vitamin supplementation increases the virulence of Entamoeba histolytica grown axenically.

As a consequence of axenic growth and the elimination of accompanying bacterial flora, Entamoeba histolytica virulence decreases rapidly, and pathogenicity is lost. This paper evaluated the impact of vitamin supplementation on the pathogenicity of E. histolytica. Growth of E. histolytica trophozoites, cultured axenically in PEHPS (a Spanish acronym for the main ingredients - casein peptone, liver, pancreas extract and bovine serum) medium, with or without vitamins, exhibited a similar growth rate. However, the vitamin-enriched PEHPS preparations expressed 2.65 times more haemolytic activity (at 60 min: 98 vs 48%, P < 0.05), 2.5 times more phospholipase A2 activity at 150 min of incubation and generated more hepatic abscesses (88 vs 60%, P = 0.05) than the preparations without vitamins. The haemolytic and phospholipase A2 activity for the PEHPS - V preparations were restored following vitamin supplementation with A and D. These data highlight, for the first time, that vitamins and specifically vitamin A and D were essential for the recovery of amoebic virulence, lost through axenic growth.