Association of multiple sclerosis with vitiligo: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Polyautoimmunity implicates that some autoimmune diseases share common etiopathogenesis. Some studies have reported an association between multiple sclerosis (MS) and vitiligo; meanwhile, other studies have failed to confirm this association. We performed a systemic review and meta-analysis to examine the association of MS with vitiligo. We searched the MEDLINE and Embase databases on March 8, 2020 for relevant case-control, cross-sectional, and cohort studies. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to evaluate the risk of bias of the included studies. Where applicable, we performed a meta-analysis to calculate the pooled odds ratio (OR) for case-control/cross-sectional studies and risk ratio for cohort studies with 95% confidence interval (CI). Our search identified 285 citations after removing duplicates. Six case-control studies with 12,930 study subjects met our inclusion criteria. Our meta-analysis found no significant association of MS with prevalent vitiligo (pooled OR 1.33; 95% CI 0.80‒2.22). Analysis of the pooled data failed to display any increase of prevalent vitiligo in MS patients compared with controls. Ethnic and genetic factors may play an important role for sporadically observed associations between MS and vitiligo. Future studies of this association should therefore consider stratification by ethnic or genetic factors.