Vitiligo is a common, chronic, acquired cutaneous depigmentation disorder causing loss of melanocytes in the skin and mucosa. The reported prevalence rate is 1% to 2% of the population for both sexes and all races.¹ Vitiligo is one of the best-known autoimmune diseases, and depigmentation can evolve throughout life in affected persons, especially in the case of generalized vitiligo.¹ Vitiligo has major effects on self-esteem and social life, and quality of life is highly impaired in patients with this disease.²

A scar is a mark that remains after the healing of a wound or other morbid processes. In the past, treatment was mainly focused on severe scarring, such as the hypertrophic and burn scars. However, scars from relatively minor wounds can also be stressful. The site of an open thyroidectomy is the anterior neck, a prominently exposed part of the body, where postoperative scarring can cause patients distress. The cosmetic outcome of the scar after thyroidectomy is of particular importance to women, who constitute the majority of patients with thyroid disease. Active prevention is more likely to yield better cosmetic results and would require fewer treatment sessions and less expense than scar revision procedures. Many interventions have been proposed, but there is yet no universal consensus on optimal treatment. Recently, focus has been made on ‘laser scar prevention’, where various types of lasers have been used to improve the appearance of scars. The purpose of this study was to improve the appearance of scars, by laser intervention of the wound healing process. In this pilot study, we comparatively examined the effect of non-ablative 1550-nm fractional Er: glass laser and ablative 2940-nm fractional Er: YAG laser on fresh surgical scars of patients with Fitzpatrick skin type III-IV.