The perilesional skin in vitiligo: a colorimetric “in vivo” study of 25 patients

Background: The aim of this work was to study in vivo the perilesional skin in vitiligo with a colorimetric method. Methods: Twenty-five patients affected by vitiligo were included. For each patient, three different areas were considered: the lesional, the perilesional and the normal skin as far as 5cm from the nearest vitiligo spot. Skin pigmentation measurements were performed with a chromameter. Results: The results showed that luminance L* decreased significantly in relation to increasing distance from the vitiligo spot. As expected, L* in the vitiligo spot was significantly higher than in the perilesional (P < 0.0001) and normal skin (P < 0.0001). There was a small difference in L* between normal skin as far as 5cm from the nearest vitiligo spot and perilesional skin. In contrast, the pigmentation index (b*) gradually increased from lesional to perilesional to normal skin. Furthermore, the comparison of the b* value between the normal skin as far as 5cm from the nearest vitiligo spot was higher than perilesional skin and it was statistically significant (P < 0.0001). Conclusion: Our results in vivo underline that the perilesional skin near the vitiligo spot is lighter than normal skin as far as 5 cm from the vitiligo spot.