Comorbidities more common in chronic urticaria, psoriasis, and AD

A German study identified several comorbid diseases that have a high prevalence in patients with chronic urticaria, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis (AD); thus, adding to their burden of disease [1].

Data for this study was obtained from a representative subset of anonymised German health insurance claims containing information of about 4 million insured people [1]. Included were 2,561 adults and 216 paediatric patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU). For psoriasis, 72,738 adults were included and 747 paediatric patients, as well as 61,030 adults with AD and 30,180 children. The study also contained a reference group of 3,243,744 adults and 576,234 children/adolescents matched according to age and sex to investigate for comorbidity prevalence. Of the adults, 50% were male, and 51.4% of the children were male. Mean age of adult and paediatric patients was 52.2 years and 10.6 years for CSU. Respective values for psoriasis were 59.1 and 12.5, for AD 47.7 and 7.72. All patients had to be observable throughout the entire year of 2017. They were included based on their specific ICD-10 code for diagnosis.

Over all 3 diseases, the researchers found correspondingly increased frequencies for anxiety and depression in adult patients when compared with the matched subjects. The paediatric patients were more prone to these diagnoses than the controls, but not as much as the grown-ups. Looking especially at results for CSU, Dr Karsten Weller (Charité University Hospital, Germany) and his fellow researchers found augmented values for prevalence of comorbidity for allergic rhinitis (24.8%), arthropathies (44.5%), dermatitis and eczema (38.4%), and hypertension (41.7%) in adults with CSU. Rates for adults with psoriasis and AD were similar with the exception of autoimmune thyreoiditis, which was clearly more frequent in CSU.

In children with CSU, concurrent diagnoses of asthma (15.6%) and allergic rhinitis (25.6%) stood out. The corresponding rates in the control group were 6.03% and 5.53%, respectively. This large data analysis confirms a high prevalence of physical and psychiatric comorbidities in adult and paediatric CSU patients. The authors emphasised that due to their very specific inclusion criteria for CSU patients in this study, they probably underestimated the prevalence of CSU in Germany.

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   1. Weller K, et al. P0930, EADV 2019, 9-13 Oct, Madrid, Spain.

 



Posted on 9 October, 201912 March, 2021