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Using the blue screen of a smartphone as an alternative to Wood’s lamp for examination of vitiligo

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Clinical challenge

The Wood’s lamp is an instrument that is commonly used as a bedside investigative modality. Vitiligo is a common, autoimmune disorder characterized by depigmentation of the skin and mucosal surfaces. When the radiation (wavelength, 320-400 nm) from a Wood’s lamp falls on a vitiliginous lesion, the lack of epidermal melanin facilitates visible autofluorescence of dermal collagen, thereby accentuating the lesion. This accentuation is used to differentiate vitiligo from other disorders with

Solution

The authors used a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 smartphone (Samsung, Seoul, South Korea). A blue image was downloaded from the Internet, saved to the image gallery, and opened. The smartphone settings were modified to increase the intensity of brightness to maximum and set the screen timeout to none. Thus, the device was emitting blue light (Fig 1). A patient with segmental vitiligo was examined in a dark room by using this alternative source. We found that both visualization and accentuation of

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  • J.M. Bae et al.

    A grayscale photograph with high dynamic range taken under a Wood’s lamp for better recognition of vitiligo lesions

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Funding sources: None.

Conflicts of interest: None disclosed.

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