Epidemiology and Severity of Prurigo Nodularis in Europe: A Literature Review with an Application to Italian Data.

INTRODUCTION

Prurigo nodularis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with recent definition and relatively low prevalence. Information on prurigo nodularis, including its epidemiology, severity, and burden of disease, is still scanty.

OBJECTIVES

We sought to review and summarize recent quantitative data on prurigo nodularis in Europe and to estimate the burden of disease in Italy, with a focus on moderate-to-severe prurigo nodularis.

METHODS

We conducted a systematic literature review of recent studies on the epidemiology of prurigo nodularis in Europe, using PubMed/MEDLINE and EMBASE. The study selection process was conducted independently by two reviewers. Articles focusing on the severity of prurigo nodularis were also searched (non-systematically), and relevant information was extracted. Synthetic results were combined to population data to derive the best estimate of the burden of prurigo nodularis in Italian adults.

RESULTS

Five articles reporting data on incidence and/or prevalence of prurigo nodularis in European populations were identified. The prevalence of prurigo nodularis ranged from 6.5 to 111.0 cases per 100,000, with a median estimate of 32.7 cases per 100,000, the incidence ranging between 2.88 and 20 per 100,000 person-years. Five other studies reported data on the severity of prurigo nodularis, measured through pruritus scores, quality-of-life indexes and/or percentage of non-response to treatment. We estimated a total of 16,280 prevalent prurigo nodularis cases in Italy, of whom 6,073 had moderate-to-severe to very severe disease. Among the latter, 1,798 estimated cases were not controlled by standard treatments.

CONCLUSIONS

We retrieved and summarized recent epidemiological data on prurigo nodularis, evidencing a high burden of disease in Italy and other European countries.