The white spots are not exclusive to vitiligo, there are many clinical skin diseases that can also cause the occurrence of white spots, which requires clinicians to work carefully to identify the disease and recognize the disease, if necessary, with the instruments, laboratory tests or biopsy (examination information is for reference only), to prevent misdiagnosis and misdiagnosis.
The white spots are well-defined at the edges and the pigmentation deepens instead. Sometimes there are small dots or islands of pigmentation on the white spots. It is more likely to occur on the face and neck, back of the hands, trunk and external genitalia. It can occur at any age.
Idiopathic punctate leukoplakia, also known as senile leukoplakia, occurs mostly in the elderly. The rash is a round white spot with clear margins and deepening pigmentation without conscious symptoms. The difference with vitiligo is that the white spots are only a few millimeters in size and are not patchy, with no deepening of pigmentation at the edges.
The most important thing is that the skin is not only round, oval or irregular-shaped hypopigmented spots (pale spots), the border is not clear, the surface is dry, and a small amount of thin scales, no conscious symptoms, spring It is common in spring.
Inflammatory white spots are pigment loss spots secondary to many inflammatory skin diseases, light-colored white spots with local or diffuse distribution, varying in size, with unclear boundaries, no deepening of pigmentation at the edges, and no scales on the surface. It is often secondary to psoriasis, chronic eczema, discoid lupus erythematosus, leprosy, neurodermatitis and other skin diseases.
Mucocutaneous leukoplakia refers to white hyperkeratotic lesions that occur in the oral and vulvar mucosa. Oral mucosal leukoplakia is a well-defined creamy white hypertrophic plaque, lusterless, hard to touch, bleeding when cracking occurs, and can be followed by ulceration, mild pain or pins and needles sensation. The rash is a creamy white or grayish white hypertrophic plaque with clear boundaries, with obvious itching, and can be followed by moss-like changes.
Sclerosing atrophic moss, also known as white moss. Prevalent in the vulva and perianal area, the rash is ivory-white atrophic plaque, with a special hourglass or dumbbell shape and intense itching. The disease eventually progresses to penile dryness or female pubic dryness.
Anemic nevus It is a kind of congenital pigment loss spot, the white spot is uneven with normal skin, the boundary is unclear, due to the sparse capillaries of the white spot, the blood supply is insufficient, the white spot does not redden after rubbing, it appears more white, while the surrounding skin reddens.
Anaplastic nevus is an irregular and limited hypopigmented spot that is present at birth, with unclear borders, occurs unilaterally, has a linear or band-like distribution along the nerve segments, and lasts for a lifetime, commonly found on the trunk.
Sweat spots, also known as lichen planus, are hypopigmented spots in the shape of ovoid, covered with a small amount of very fine bran-like scales, which occur in the parts rich in sebaceous glands, such as the neck, chest, back, armpits and other parts, and generally have no conscious symptoms. Microscopic examination of the scaly fungus can find spores and mycelium.
Albinism This is an autosomal recessive disorder in which the skin of the patient is white due to the absence of melanocytes, the pupils of both eyes are red, the eyes are photophobic, and the skin burns easily.
It is an autosomal dominant disorder that occurs on the forehead and is characterized by triangular or rhombic white spots, often combined with white hair on the forehead, and white spots on other parts of the body that occur in the centerline, with islands of normal skin in the white areas.