After successful trials following DRDO approvals, herbal medication for vitiligo treatment gets recognition. Many people with vitiligo seem to be turning towards herbal remedies like Lukoskin developed by the central government’s premier research agency Defence Research and Development Organisation.

Till now, more than one lakh patients suffering from the skin condition, also known as leucoderma, have been treated with Lukoskin, with an average success rate of 70 per cent, said Dr Nitika Kohli from AIMIL Healthcare.

AIMIL Healthcare is manufacturing and marketing the herbal drug.

Kohli, an Ayurveda expert herself, said after the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) transferred the technology, human clinical trials were conducted and the drug was launched in the market in 2011.

“In these ten years, over one lakh patients have been treated with the drug. We found 70 per cent success rate,” she said.

In fact, AIMIL is in the process of launching an advanced version of the drug, and the DRDO is already working in this direction.

Kohli was speaking at a virtual conference on Clinical Management of Tough Skin Diseases’ to mark 10 years of the launch of Lukoskin as well as of AIMIL Healthcare.

Representatives and doctors from various medical streams, including allopathy, participated in the programme and highlighted the role of herbs in general and Lukoskin in particular in the treatment of leucoderma.

The ointment has seven herbal ingredients having properties such as photosensitisation, anti-blister, anti-irritation, anti-septic and wound healing properties, while the oral formulation is designed to improve the auto-immune system and supplement copper which checks the emergence of new spots, Kohli explained.

Dr Deepali Bhardwaj, a city-based dermatologist, pointed out that vitiligo can cause disfiguration, impair the social function of patients and induce physiological burdens.

In fact, in India, vitiligo has a social stigma attached to it as people confuse it with leprosy. The incidence of leucoderma is 1-2 per cent of the population worldwide.