Satellite repigmentation after punch grafting.

ABSTRACT

Punch grafting is an established treatment modality for management of localized, nonprogressive vitiligo resistant to conventional therapies.(1) In our set up, punch grafting is routinely carried out in focal vitiligo, segmental vitiligo and even in few cases of generalized vitiligo, especially when it is a serious cosmetic problem.(2) However, the procedure is adopted only when the disease is stable for a sufficient period. All patients are routinely kept on psoralen tablets and ultraviolet light exposure from sunlight (PUVA sol therapy) after 2-3 weeks of punch grafting. Interestingly, follow up of such patients revealed conspicuous repigmentation in surrounding ungrafted patches in four of the patients (out of 55 follow-up cases). Herein, this phenomenon has been aptly termed satellite repigmentation (SR). To the best of our knowledge, no other report documenting SR after punch grafting exists in the medical literature. We report the observations of these four patients.