DOI: 10.36347/sasjm.2023.v09i01.012

Pages: 57-59

Vitiligo and psoriasis are common inflammatory skin diseases, although, their association in the same patient is rare. We report the cases of two diabetic women (59 and 61-year-old). The first patient had extensive vitiligo evolving since infancy; she consulted for a moderate pruritus in the vitiligo lesions followed by erythematosquamous lesions at the same sites. The second patient consulted for the same lesions but in this case psoriasis appeared first followed by achromic lesions in the same sites and beyond. A medical atopic history was reported in the two cases. Few publications reported the association of vitiligo-psoriasis in the literature. The majority of case reports illustrated patients diagnosed with vitiligo who developed psoriasis later. Current data on the pathophysiology of these two conditions are still unclear; however, the two diseases share a common locus in the major histocompatibility complex. Dendritic cells may also participate in the genesis of both skin diseases via autoimmune inflammation mediated by the Th1 and Th17 pathways. In addition, pro-inflammatory cytokines IFNα has been recognised as a potential inducer of both psoriasis and vitiligo. The presence of atopic medical history in our cases can be explained by the high activity of IL- 2 witch is raised in psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and vitiligo, furthermore, locus PSORS4 and atopic dermatitis locus ATOD2 are co-localizated on chromosome 1q21, it leads to suggest that, probably, a vitiligo locus overlaps on the same chromosome1q21. The role of psychological stress and Koebner’s phenomenon is often emphasized in the genesis of the two diseases.