Repair efficiency and PUVA therapeutic response variation in patients with vitiligo

► First report on response variation to PUVA therapy in vitiligo patients. ► DNA damage observed to be different between patient and control groups (p8.8% in Indian population. Psoralen and ultraviolet A radiation (PUVA) is a gold standard treatment for vitiligo, however, response is still empirical. In order to investigate whether drug response variation is influenced by the repair ability of PUVA treated vitiligo subjects, single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE) for genotoxicity and serum malonaldehyde (MDA) for cytotoxicity were performed on 107 subjects (77 cases and 30 healthy controls) in South Indian population. In vitro repair ability was assessed by considering the residual damage. A significant difference was observed between the patients and controls with regard to their mean values of DNA damage and MDA levels (p