Vitiligo has been, until recently, a rather neglected area in dermatology and medicine. Patients complain about this situation, which has offered avenues to quacks, and has led to the near orphan status of the disease. The apparently, simple and poorly symptomatic presentation of the disease has been a strong disadvantage to its study, as compared to other common chronic skin disorders such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. Vitiligo is still considered by doctors as a non disease, a simple aesthetic problem. A good skin-based angle of attack is also lacking because generalized vi- ligo is...

This view has mostly restricted Vitiligo to the manifestation of an auto-immune diathesis and skin events, which are easily detected using skin biospies in most other situations, have not been precisely recorded, with the argument that a clinical diagnosis was sufficient for the management of the patient with Vitiligo.