Transplantation of Autologous Melanocytes for Treatment of Vitiligo: A Systematic Review

Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of autologous melanocytes for treatment of stable vitiligo. Methods We did a systematic literature search for studies from PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library （Issue 2, 2013）, Chinese Biological Medicine Data-base, CNKI and WanFang Database on the internet. All the studies meeting the inclusion criteria were selected. We manually searched current journals and conferences abstracts, relevant reviews and their references. RevMan 5.1 software was used for meta-analysis. Results Seven clinical controlled trials including 341 patients were included. The Results of meta-analyses showed that the efficacy in patients underwent melanocyte transplantation was superior to the control OR=2.92, 95%CI（1.71, 5.00）, the efficacy in patients underwent autologous melanocyte transplantation was significantly higher than that in patients who underwent cryostore or ultraviolet therapy OR=4.00, 95%CI（1.28, 12.49）. The effect in patients who underwent autologous melanocyte transplantation was significantly higher than controlled cases OR=18.26,95%CI（4.81, 69.42）. The autologous melanocyte transplantation and thickness thin skin grafts was equally effective OR=2.42, 95%CI（0.90, 6.53）. The efficacy of cultured autologous melanocyte and non-cultured was similarOR=0.41, 95% CI （0.11, 1.56）. Conclusions The efficacy of autologous melanocytes for treatment of stable vitiligo is much higher than those traditional therapies, but is equally effective with thickness thin skin grafts transplantation. The Results of transplantation is related to anatomical site and so on. More evidence from high qualified multi-center studies is needed.