Vitiligo and the Impact on Patient Quality of Life
David Rosmarin, MD, shares his thoughts on the impact of vitiligo on patient quality of life, including what we need to understand as novel therapies emerge. Dr Rosmarin is the vice chair of research and education in the department of dermatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA.
Transcript
Dr Rosmarin: We want to make sure that we support all our patients who have vitiligo. There are some that may just want to know their diagnosis and be supported in that and know what their prognosis is and if there are comorbidities. That's important. They may not have a goal of repigmentation. It's important for us providers to understand that and recognize it and treat the patient rather than the disease. For those patients who want to repigment, and it's affecting their quality of life, this really holds a lot of promise and potential to achieve their goals.
With time, we'll hopefully have some data on how it affects patients' quality of life over time. Certainly, there can be differences depending on the patient's race, culture, geographic location, age, gender, and whether it's stable or unstable vitiligo.
We hope to get that data as well. I think there is a lot of potential to impact the quality of life for our patients.
