Vitiligo...set # 2...Looking for Melanoma Answers!!

I last posted pictures of my vitiligo, September 18, 2011.  Since then, it has progressed a great deal.  Originally, it was only on my right hand, progressed to blotches on both my thighs, and is now pretty much every where anatomically speaking though still blotchy.

Thigh.  Still lumpy from the granulomas that developed after all the peptide vaccine injections...but softer, and less distinct than they were, which is hopeful.

Other thigh.

Progression to lower legs.

Forearm...slightly different lighting...sorry.

 For those of you new to this, vitiligo occurs with the destruction of melanocytes.  (The cells that give our skin pigment.)  It can occur spontaneously in some people. For example, 0.4% of Caucasians in the United States develop vitiligo.  The appearance of vitiligo is a positive sign in melanoma patients because it indicates an immune response to normal melanocytes as well as melanoma cells.  In some groups of melanoma patients given IL2, as many as 20% of the patients have developed vitiligo. Vitiligo in all melanoma patients is associated with better outcomes, with a rough doubling of 10 year survival in Stage IV patients. While some data has been collected and reported in various melanoma trials regarding the number of patients who develop vitiligo, it has not been studied significantly. However, Mary Jo Turk, PhD, at Dartmouth, has been investigating the relationship between the development of vitiligo, melanoma, and survival in mice.  (New Perspectives on the Role of Vitiligo in Immune Responses to Melanoma.  Oncotarget.  2011, September;2 (9):684-694.)  We have been lucky enough to correspond with her and are working to share some of the data/blood sample information that has been collected on me in the course of my trial with her, in hopes of furthering her work.  If vitiligo aids survival in melanoma patients, we must figure out how to create that process when we need to!!!!  - c