Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Dermatology

Background: Systemic nature of vitiligo is gaining more concern starting by the associated autoimmune risk ending with the recently raised issue of the associated metabolic risk.Methods: This cross-sectional study included 150 vitiligo patients and 150 age and sex matched controls. Among the studied vitiligo patients, 57 were males (38%) and 93 were females (62%), 100 (66.7%) had non segmental vitiligo (NSV) and 50 (33.3%) had segmental vitiligo. They were assessed for Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) using International Diabetes Federation (IDF) in addition to insulin resistance via homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in all patients and controls. In addition, Serum leptin was assessed in a randomly selected subgroup of patients and controls. Patients were further subdivided according to the age of onset into pre pubertal and post pubertal considering the different metabolic risk factors. Results: Vitiligo patients were found at higher metabolic risk. MetS was diagnosed in 37 (24.7%) of the vitiligo patients compared to 16 (10.7%) of the controls. In addition, vitiligo patients were found to have both insulin and leptin resistance. This proved true for both vitiligo patients with post pubertal and pre pubertal onset compared to their matched controls. Considering disease characteristics, metabolic risk was higher in patients with long vitiligo duration. However, it didn{u2019}t correlate with disease severity as per vitiligo area and severity Index (VASI) or body surface area (BSA)

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