VITILIGO IN CHILDREN

In our study the relative incidence of vitiligo among new patients was 2.6%. Twenty percent were children and 74% were adults. Of the 90 children, 38.9% were boys, and 61.1% were girls. This sex difference was statistically highly significant. The adult sex-ratio was not statistically significant. The relative incidence of the clinical subtypes in children and adults was compared, and the difference was found to be statistically highly significant only in the case of vitiligo vulgaris and segmental vitiligo. On the basis of the difference in the sex-ratio and in the relative incidence of the subtypes of vitiligo vulgaris and segmental vitiligo, we feel that childhood vitiligo is a distinct subtype of vitiligo.