Anne-Lou D.B. Caron-Schreinemachers, Melanie M. Kingswijk, Jan D. Bos, Wiete Westerhof
DOI: 10.1080/00015550410022203

It is assumed that skin is protected against sunburn by melanin. In patients with vitiligo, there are white patches in the normal pigmented skin. We noticed that there is a difference in burning capacity of these white patches between people with different skin types. With UVB 311 nm lamps, we irradiated both lesional and non-lesional skin with increasing doses in 33 patients with vitiligo, divided into 5 groups according to skin type (II-VI). Twenty-four hours later we assessed the minimal erythema dose and found a correlation between skin type and UV sensitivity in both lesional skin and normal skin. We suggest that there must be a protection mechanism, other than that offered by melanin pigmentation. The antioxidant status may play a role in this phenomenon.