102 J Scientometric Res. | May–Aug 2013 | Vol 2 | Issue 2 INTRODUCTION Vitiligo is a major skin disease and people are suffering with this worldwide. The major symptoms are the patches of light or discolored skin and sometime de-pigmentation of hair as well as eyes. [1] The major cause behind the disease is due to loss of functioning melanocytes and melanin from the epidermis. Vitiligo is affecting nearly 2% of the world population. It can JSCIRES RESEARCH ARTICLE Vitiligo: A quantitative analysis of the world research output during 2001-2012 Raj Kumar Bhardwaj*, Shri Ram 1 , Shikha Kaushik 2 College Library, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, 1 Library, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, 2 Department of Chemistry, Rajdhani College, Raja Garden, New Delhi, India ABSTRACT The study aimed to evaluates vitiligo research carried out in different countries of the world during 2001-2012 using bibliometric indicators. Data of the present study has been obtained from Scopus (http://www.scopus) database using the keywords “Alopecia universalis” “onychodystrophy” “Schrander-Stumpel Theunissen Hulsmans syndrome”, “Spastic paraplegia”, “Pigmentation Disorders”, “Hypopigmentation” during the period of study. The study examined the type of documents, country-wise contribution, subject-wise distribution, most productive institutions, most productive authors, highly productive journals and highly cited papers in vitiligo research. A total of 4091 papers were published during 2001-2012 at the annual growth rate of (20.24%). USA is the most productive country which shared (19.41%) of the world publications. India holds 2 nd rank with 388 (9.48%) papers. Overall, 50 or more citations have been witnessed to 207 papers. Germany, France, Spain and Japan activity index has been come down during the period of 2007-2012. However, majority of leading institutions are located in developed countries such as USA, UK, France and Germany. Nevertheless, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh has been identified the most productive institution in vitiligo research. Besides this, Karin Uta Schallreuter from University of Bradford is found the most productive author who has contributed 45 articles. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology’ is identified the most productive journal. In the last two decades considerable progress has been made to cope this affliction, nevertheless scientist are not able to develop a vaccine. It is expected that in near future a vaccine will be available in the market to counter the disease. Keywords: Activity index, bibliometric study, dermatology, vaccine occur at any age, but more prevalent in the age group of 10-30 years. It has more chances of occurrence before the age of 20. [2,3] Vitiligo has been presented as a disorder of multifactorial etiology which could be associated with environmental, genetic propensity and sometime immunologic factors. [4] Evidently, it is a part of a broader, genetically determined, autoimmune and auto inflammatory diathesis. [5] The cause is a substantial loss of functioning melanocytes in the depigmented patches. The etiology is still unknown and pathogenesis has not been completely understood so far. Several hypotheses have been proposed and one of the hypotheses, i.e. the autocytotoxic suggests that melanocyte impairment could be related to increased oxidative stress. [6] Vitiligo may be inherited and supposed to have genetic basis. [7] A child affected with vitiligo has significant psychological trauma, which may have long-lasting effects on the self-esteem. [8] *Address for correspondence: E-mail: raajchd@gmail.com Access this article online Quick Response Code: Website: www.jscires.org DOI: 10.4103/2320-0057.128992 [Downloaded free from http://www.jscires.org on Friday, March 21, 2014, IP: 14.139.45.243] || Click here to download free Android application for this journal