Methods :

More than 4000 patients have visited my clinic over the years. Majority of patients were treated with combination of oral and topical medication with main active ingredients being TCM herbs except for young children, who were treated with topical medication alone. One treatment course was 3 months. The progression was assessed every 3 months.

Results:

Among all the vitiligo patients I have treated so far, good repigmentation was achieved in most of the patients. The results are especially satisfactory for vitiligo on face, followed by neck, trunk and limbs. Vitiligo in the limbs especially acral sites such as hands or feet or areas over bony prominences such as elbows and knees were most resistant to treatment although we were also able to achieve certain success even on the difficult sites.
Normally patients started to note repigmentation in 1 month of treatment and significant repigmentation was achieved after 3-6 month of treatment.
No significant short-term or long-term side effects including drug eruption, contact dermatitis, skin cancer or systemic complication were found within the follow-up period, which ranged from 3 months to 10 years.

Table 1. Treatment results of vitiligo from different lesion sites.

*Results was according to the percentage of repigmentation.
I.   Cure:                         100% repigmentation
II.  Good response:         >50% repigmentation
III. Moderate response:  10-50% repigmentation
IV. No response:            <10% repigmentation
T.   Total efficiency         I+II+III

Conclusion :

Our clinical results suggested that our TCM regime represented a safe, effective and non-invasive therapeutic alternative for vitiligo. In addition, the advantages of TCM treatment are its simple method, convenient usage and low cost.