How Do I Choose the Best Albinism Treatment?

Albinism

Albinism symptoms

Albinism

Albinism is a more common disease caused by melanin deficiency in the skin and its accessory organs. Such patients usually have skin, hair, and eyes that lack melanin, so they appear as five pigments in the retina of the eye, pale pink iris and pupil, afraid of light, always squinting when looking at things. The skin, eyebrows, hair, and other body hair are all white or yellowish white. Such patients are commonly referred to as "sheep whiteheads".

In fact, the human body shows different skin tones due to the varying amount of melanin contained in the human skin. Black people have the most melanin, yellow people have less melanin, and white people have the least melanin, so the skin color shows a big difference. The patients with albinism are due to the lack of an enzyme in the body-tyrosinase. The melanocytes in the patient's body cannot eventually turn tyrosinase into melanin. The gene that controls tyrosinase is located on the 11th autosome. Therefore, albinism is a recessive inheritance on the autosome in the way of inheritance. Only when the individual is recessive homozygote (aa), it manifests as albinism. Usually, the parents of albinos are heterozygotes with normal phenotype, and the genotype (Aa) is the carrier of the disease-causing gene. 1/4 of the risk. The incidence of albinism in the population is about 1/10 000 to 1/2 0000.

It is due to the lack of pigment in the body, resulting in lighter eyes, hair, and skin. Individuals with albinism are also known as albino. Due to the lack of melanin, white seeds are often susceptible to sunburn and natural enemies' feeding, so white seeds are rarely seen in the wild. White reptiles such as snakes or turtles tend to have a pale yellow body color. Baizi can be found in fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds.

Causes of albinism

Individuals with a congenital hereditary cause of albinism are related to the gene that produces tyrosinase, which is a genetic characteristic of epistasis. Take Mianzi as an example, suppose that the gene that controls its black color is B and the brown is b. The gene that controls the production of tyrosinase is C at another locus. When the offspring's genotypes are recessive ( cc), this organism cannot produce tyrosinase to form melanin, regardless of the genotype of its coat color, this organism is white.

The daily precautions of albino patients

1. Avoid strong sunlight. You can wear a visor, even if you go out in summer, wear long-sleeved trousers as much as possible. You can also apply sunscreen to prevent premature skin aging, reduce outdoor activities under strong light, thereby reducing the possibility of solar dermatitis and even skin cancer. Sex. Such as basal cell carcinoma, etc., apply emollients to moisturize dry skin. Perform regular physical examinations to detect signs of cancer in a timely manner.

2. Pay attention to protect your eyes. You can wear sunglasses to reduce the discomfort of photophobia, avoid prolonged eye use and regular vision inspections. Should go to the regular hospital's ophthalmology consultation, adopt scientific and correct methods to correct problems such as strabismus, improve vision as much as possible or prevent vision from falling too fast.

3. Improve psychological quality. Although most patients with albinism have special appearance and low vision, they have normal intelligence and need social understanding and help. At the same time, they should also cultivate their cheerful and optimistic characters. ^[1]

4. Avoid close relatives getting married.

Albino treatment and precautions

Albinism treatment

At present, the drug treatment is ineffective, and only physical methods such as shading can be used to reduce the discomfort of patients. White spots can also be weakened or even disappeared by the use of photosensitive drugs, hormones and other treatments. Genetic diagnosis of albinism is mainly based on the symptoms and signs of the eye. Differential diagnosis of each subtype is critical. The determination of tyrosinase activity is helpful for its differential diagnosis. Genetic diagnosis is currently the most reliable method in differential diagnosis and prenatal diagnosis. Some subtypes of albinism may not be elucidated because of its pathogenic mechanism, and genetic diagnosis is still difficult. Research advances Albino has no cure except symptomatic treatment. Therefore, prevention should be the focus, that is, genetic counseling is one of the important preventive measures to prevent marriage of close relatives. Prenatal genetic diagnosis is also important to prevent the birth of children Safety precautions. Prevention should minimize the damage to the eyes and skin caused by ultraviolet radiation.

Albino precautions

First: Traditional therapies do not cure the symptoms. The traditional treatment method is only a superficial article. It does not solve the substantive problem of melanin source and apoptosis. It can be said that it is passive water. Without solving the problem from the source, it cannot fundamentally and effectively treat mottled disease.

Second: Common drugs are weak. Due to the limitation of backward pharmaceutical technology, the drug molecules are very large and cannot effectively pass through the blood-brain barrier of the human body to reach the pituitary and central nervous system pineal gland of the brain. In this way, the pituitary secretion cannot be effectively regulated to promote melanin production.

Third: The treatment is not scientific. Without rigorous scientific testing and typing. At present, there is a large blindness in the treatment of mottled disease. Just go to a pharmacy to buy some medicine for external use, or prescribe some hormonal drugs in local clinics, and some even use some earth methods to deal with it, until the white spots spread widely, and then Taking a lot of western medicine in order to cure it as soon as possible, but the disease is not cured, but also produces serious toxic and side effects, and gradually loses confidence in treatment.

Fourth: Carelessness creates aftereffects. Many patients did not pay enough attention at the beginning of the onset of the disease, delayed the optimal treatment time without timely treatment, the condition became worse, the medication was ineffective, and then the medication became worse, forming such a cycle of recurrence, causing psychological and economic losses to the patient.

Three points for prevention of albinism

(1). First of all: Prohibit the marriage of close relatives. Because the marriage of close relatives is 33 times higher than the average person.

(2). Some scholars believe that if only one side of a couple carries a disease-causing gene, 1/2 of the second generation born is the carrier of the disease (express melanin), and the other 1/2 is normal; If both spouses are carriers, the second generation will be ill children, 1/4 will be normal children, and 1/2 will be carriers. Therefore, a person with a family history of albinism should do a premarital check when choosing a spouse to get married.

(3). When a couple who has albino patients in their relatives wants to give birth, a prenatal diagnosis should be made.

How to distinguish albinism from white spots

Albinism and leukoplakia are both pigmented skin disorders. In both cases, the appearance of white spots on the skin is the main clinical manifestation, and there is no obvious itching sensation. But albinism and leukoplakia are two very different diseases. Clinically, it is distinguished from the following aspects:

(1) Age of onset Albinism has a clear "whitening" manifestation since birth; white spots occur on the day after birth and can begin at any age, but the number of people with the disease before the age of 20 is the largest.

(2) Family history Albinism has a typical family genetic history; the incidence of white spots is related to heredity, but there is no large amount of statistical data to confirm that Chinese scholars report that white spots are related to heredity, accounting for only 3.9% to 10.7%.

(3) Onset sites Generalized albinism is the whitening of the skin, hair, and eyes throughout the body; white spots can occur in any part, but they occur in exposed and wrinkled areas.

(4) Characteristics of white spots All the skin of albinism turns white, the hair is white or pale yellow, the eyes lack pigments, photophobia, and the vision is unclear during the day; white spots are limited to local areas, the edges are clear, the surrounding pigments are slightly darker, Scattered in the island-like pigment area, the size and shape of white spots are different. Physical stimulation can induce new white spots or enlarge the original white spots. Hair on white spots can turn white or non-white.

(5) Pathological examination: Take the patient's skin tissue and make a section, and observe under the microscope: the epidermal melanin disappears completely in albinism patients; in melasma patients, the melanin area decreases or disappears completely, and the melanin on the edges increases.

(6) Drugs for the treatment of albinism are ineffective, and only physical methods can be used to reduce lightness to reduce the patient's discomfort; white spots can be weakened or even disappeared after treatment with photosensitive drugs, hormones and Chinese medicine.