Vitiligo treatment: a look into the future (literature review)

Vitiligo is a disease that negatively influences patient’s quality of life, lowers their self-esteem, and causes significant psychological discomfort. According to numerous studies, patients with vitiligo are more likely to develop depressive and anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts. Despite the prevalence and social significance of the disease, vitiligo therapy remains a topical issue today. So, at the moment in the world there are still no specially registered drugs and treatments for vitiligo. Therapy of the disease today is mainly represented by drugs from the group of corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitors, both in the form of monotherapy and in the form of combination therapy with narrow band UVB phototherapy. However, the overall effectiveness of standard treatment regimens does not exceed 80%, and the relapse rate can be up to 75%, which does not meet the expectations of the patient and the dermatovenerologist.

This article is of a review character. The aim of the article was to study new promising methods of treatment of the disease in the practice of Russian and foreign specialists, their availability and principles of action.

A systematic literature review was performed using PubMed, Cochrane Library, Clinicaltrials.gov, Cyberleninka, and Internet databases to identify new drugs/methods in development, in clinical trials, and soon to be on the biopharmaceutical market. Keywords such as “vitiligo,” “quality of life,” and “treatment” were used in the literature search of the above-mentioned databases. The results of various clinical trials are given. The review identified the main contenders for the role of long-term therapy for vitiligo, which in the future will optimize patient management tactics and adherence to treatment.

This review, addressed to practicing dermatovenerologists interested in vitiligo therapy, points to a process of active research and development of new therapies, in which more than 20 biopharmaceutical companies worldwide are currently involved. It should be expected that in the next few years the range of drugs used to treat the disease will completely change. Based on recent research on the pathogenesis of vitiligo, it can be concluded that from the entire list of promising drugs, local janus kinase inhibitors are probably the most promising new class of drugs for the treatment of this disease.