Henry Ford Hospital Discovers Cure For Skin Disorder

DETROIT (WWJ) -- Henry Ford Hospital has discovered a breakthrough procedure to battle the skin disease Vitiligo.

Vitiligo is a disease that causes the loss of skin color, leaving white blotches in different sizes on different locations of the body. You may remember, Michael Jackson having this skin disorder.

Now, new research from Henry Ford Hospital has found a breakthrough treatment -- skin transplant surgery. The out-patient surgery is called MKTP, and it works like this.

First a thin skin graft -- thinner than a piece of toilet paper -- is taken from an area of healthy skin on the patient and put in a special liquid that removes the melanocyte cells. Next a laser removes an area of skin that has lost it's pigment, and that's where the solution is applied.

"We will take that solution and we spray it on the skin," dermatologist Iltefat Hamzavi told WWJ's health report Deanna Lites. "Then we put a traction to hold those skin cells there. Then over six months to a year and a half, the skin color comes back in a majority of patients.

Hamzavi added that the procedure can be been done on any area of the body.

It works best on patients with small, localized areas of vitiligo. So far the skin transplant appears to last. Studies show the treatment has lasted at least five years, but up to nine years in some patients.