A recent study out of India compared the two head-to-head. Both tools correlated fairly well with clinical criteria, but dermoscopy had a slight edge:

• Wood’s lamp: sensitivity 72.3%, specificity 66.7%. Correctly identified stable cases 87% of the time but was weak at ruling out unstable ones (44%).
• Dermoscopy: sensitivity 74.1%, specificity 73.5%. Showed stronger overall accuracy, with an ROC of 0.826 vs 0.695 for Wood’s lamp. It also highlights perifollicular pigmentation, satellite lesions, and micro-Koebner changes — details that matter when planning surgery.

For clinicians: If you’re mainly screening or working in darker skin types, a Wood’s lamp is still useful, dirt-cheap (usually $50–150 for a decent handheld model), and portable.

Dermatoscopes are pricier (anywhere from $500–2,000 depending on optics and digital connectivity), but they give you much richer information and reproducible images — which can guide surgical timing, document progression, and support patient education.

Takeaway: In resource-limited settings or early practice, a Wood’s lamp is a fine start. But if you’re building a vitiligo-focused clinic, investing in a dermatoscope will pay off in precision and clinical confidence.

Suggested reading:

• Vitiligo Patient Journey Map
• Which diseases most commonly accompany vitiligo?
• Which skin conditions can be mistaken for vitiligo?

 

Published on August 22, 2025