International Initiative for Outcomes (INFO) for vitiligo: workshops with patients with vitiligo on repigmentation.

BACKGROUND: There is no cure or firm clinical recommendations for the treatment of vitiligo. One of the main issues is the heterogeneity of outcome measures used in randomized controlled trials for vitiligo.

OBJECTIVES: To define successful repigmentation from the patients' point of view and to propose how and when repigmentation should be evaluated in clinical trials in vitiligo.

METHODS: We conducted three workshops with patients with vitiligo and their parents or caregivers. Workshop 1 was held at World Vitiligo Day (Detroit, MI), workshop 2 at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and workshop 3 at the Vitiligo and Pigmentation Institute of Southern California, University of California.

RESULTS: Seventy-three participants were recruited. Consensus on the following questions was achieved unanimously: (i) the definition of 'successful repigmentation' was 80-100% of repigmentation of a target lesion and (ii) both an objective and a subjective scale to measure repigmentation should be used.

CONCLUSIONS: This was the largest patients' outcomes workshop. We followed the guidance from the CSG-COUSIN and the Vitiligo Global Issues Consensus Group. Our recommendations to use percentage of repigmentation quartiles (0-25%, 26-50%, 51-79%, 80-100%) and the Vitiligo Noticeability Scale are based on the best available current evidence. A limitation of the research is that the workshops were conducted only in the U.S.A., due to pre-existing organisational support and the availability of funding.