الفهرس 
VITILIGOOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 171 |  |  |
| | | from | 171 | | |
Abstract
V
itiligo is an acquired skin disorder caused by the disappearance of pigment cells from the epidermis that gives rise to well defined white patches which are often symmetrically distributed. It occurs worldwide in about 0.1-2% of different population and it occurs as frequently in males as it does in females. The exact cause is unknown, but might involve genetic factors, autoimmunity, neurologic factors, toxic metabolites, and lack of melanocyte growth factors.
IL-23 which is a member of IL-12 family that activates the effector function of T helper 17 (TH 17) cells to promote the inflammatory responses, this cytokine induces the production of TH17 cells so it was thought that it mediates autoimmunity by secretion of IL17 family, it has been established that IL-23 is essential for the development of autoimmune diseases, including psoriatic skin inflammation, inflammatory bowel diseases auto immune diabetes and others.
In the present study, we aimed to evaluate serum IL-23 levels in active, stable and NB-UVB treated vitiligo patients in comparison to healthy controls in a case control study which was carried out on 70subjects: twenty patients with active vitiligo, twenty patients with stable vitiligo and thirty age and sex matched controls.Comparison between s.IL-23 before and after treatment among active vitiligo cases showed a high significant difference (p<0.01), the same results was present when we compared the active vitiligo cases before treatment with the controls, we concluded that altered serum IL-23 may play an important role in the immune-pathogenesis of non-segmental vitiligo.