الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 170 |  |  |
| | | from | 170 | | |
Abstract
Vitiligo is an idiopathic disorder characterized by depigmented patches in skin because of loss of melanocytes. Death of the pigment cells may be caused by factors from inside and/or outside the cell and there are many potential systems that could be involved. However, the exact cause of destruction of epidermal melanocytes is complex and not yet fully understood (Reimann et al., 2012).
Vitiligo is a relatively common dermatologic finding observed since ancient times. It presents as an idiopathic acquired skin disease, characterized by pearly-white macules of different shapes and sizes, with a tendency to increase in size centrifugally. For this reason, diagnosis is mainly clinically established (Yang Y et al., 2014).
Autoimmune theory is the most popular theory. Increased prevalence of autoimmune disorders in association with vitiligo, detection of various auto-antibodies including anti-thyroid and anti-melanocyte antibodies in the serum of vitiligo patients and alteration of T-cell population showing decreased T-helper cells are in favor of this theory (Yang Y et al., 2014).
Thyroid disorders and autoimmune thyroid diseases have been associated with vitiligo and the incidence of clinical or subclinical involvement of the thyroid is more common in patients with vitiligo as compared to healthy subjects. Studies have reported the prevalence of this association to be between 4.4% and 21% (Bertolotti et al., 2014).
This study is a case control study conducted in Dermatology clinic of Suez Canal University Hospital at Ismailia city Egypt from the year march 2016 to march 2017.
Case group include 40 patients with vitiligo and control group include 40 healthy volunteers who are matched with vitiligo patients for age and gender without vitiligo or family history of vitiligo and informed consent was obtained from every participant in the study.
All included subjects were submitted to full history taking, dermatological examination, VASI score calculation, laboratory investigation including thyroid function tests (FT3, FT4, TSH) and serum anti-TPO level which was assessed for all subjects by Immunoassay ELISA kits and the case group was divided into two sub-groups; cases with high anti-TPO level and cases with normal anti-TPO level based on laboratory findings and statistical analysis which done using the ”SPSS” statistical package.