Study Design: Case-control study Population: 45 patients with active vitiligo and 45 patients with stable vitiligo~Inclusion criteria:~Age: 18 years old and older Sex: both sexes~Exclusion criteria:~Other hypopigmented diseases such as pityriasis alba, tinea versicolor, lichen sclerosis, post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, and leprosy as excluded by lack of accentuation by wood's light examination. - Cases who received treatment (systemic or topical) in the last 3 months before sampling. - Neurological or other diseases that cause itching. - Medical history of DM, HTN, or other systemic diseases, history of associated autoimmune diseases.~Assessment will be carried as follows: • History of itching or other abnormal neurological sensations as paresthesia and numbness. Aggravating factors (e.g. dryness, hot environment, sun exposure, ..etc), alleviating factors of itching Type of vitiligo (segmental, unilateral, vulgaris). • Assessment of activity by assessing: koebner's phenomenon, confetti depigmentation, trihypochrome areas, poorly defined borders, inflammatory signs (e.g eye inflammation and hearing loss), and leukotrichia. • Assessment of sensory symptoms and signs (fine touch, crude touch, pain, and sweating by starch iodine test) in active vitiliginous patches. • Clinical assessment: the vitiligo area score index (VASI), vitiligo extent scores (VES), vitiligo disease activity score (VIDA) (Feily, 2014) will be assessed in every participant and demographic data
This work aims to assess sensory symptoms in early active vitiligo patients (segmental, non-segmental, or mixed) and to measure 3 neuropeptides expression in their lesional skin [neuropeptide Y(NPY), calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), and nerve growth factors (NGF)] to correlate neuropeptide levels, sensory symptoms, and functions, with criteria of disease activity and perceived stress scale.