Abstract

Objectives: Vitiligo is an acquired skin disorder resulting from the loss of functional melanocytes and is characterized  by depigmented macular lesions. The etiopathogenesis of vitiligo has not been explained exactly yet. As a result of the studies that have been made for clarifying this mechanism,  three basic theories have been suggested. Autoimmune theory, neural theory and autocytotoxic theory.  In this issue, there are a lot of studies and several studies have been continued.  Some of the present studies show that inflammatory parameters involves in vitiligo. As known, arachidonic acid is a PUFA and a key molecule for inflammation. In the literature, there is not a comprehensive study that investigates the relation between polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and vitiligo formation.

Patients and Methods: In this study we aimed to investigate the possible relationship between vitiligo etiopatogenesis and serum fatty acids’ composition. In this way we studied serum fatty acids’ levels in healthy and patients with generalized active vitiligo. Serum fatty acids’ levels were transformed to their methylesters, then analysed by gas cromotography.

Results and Conclusion: We found that serum fatty acid levels except two kinds were similar to those of healty controls. On the other hand, palmitoleic acid levels were found decreased and Docosapenthaenoic acid levels were found increased (p