The role of the Th1 chemokine CXCL10 in vitiligo

Vitiligo is a disorder that causes the presence of pale patchy areas of depigmented skin on the face, hands and wrists; these patches are initially small, but often grow and change in shape (1). The disorder is classified in segmental vitiligo (SV) and non-SV (NSV): (I) in NSV there is usually a symmetry in the location of depigmentation; (II) SV differs in appearance, and it is not associated with autoimmune diseases (2). There are many therapies for vitiligo, the most used are local steroids and ultraviolet light. Vitiligo is an autoimmune skin disease arising from an aberrant immune responses against melanocytes. The existence of various associations between vitiligo and other autoimmune diseases has been proved. Generalized vitiligo is a component of the APECED (APS1) and Schmidt (APS2) multiple autoimmune disease syndromes, pernicious anemia and Addison’s disease (3). Thyroid disease, autoimmune thyroid disease (4) and presence of thyroid specific autoantibodies have a mean prevalence of, respectively, 15%, 14% and 21% in patients with vitiligo (5).