Etiology and prognosis of hand eczema in a dermatology clinic in China: a follow-up study.

BACKGROUND

Prognosis of hand eczema (HE) has not been reported in China.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the etiology and outcome of HE in 655 consecutive patients patch tested with European standard series in Peking University Hospital in a 2-year period.

METHODS

All patients were re-examined at 1 year after patch testing, and prognosis of dermatitis was evaluated by the rate of clearance of skin symptoms for at least 3 months without relapse before the evaluation.

RESULTS

Of 599 patients examined, 82 (13.7%) were HE. Allergic, irritant, and unclassified HE accounted for 23.2%, 17.1%, and 51.3% of HE, respectively. The overall clearance rate of HE was much lower than that of eczema elsewhere (18.3% versus 29.6%, P < 0.05, chi-squared test). 35.7% of patients with allergic HE and 26.3% with irritant HE cleared their lesions, of those with unclassified HE only 11.9% (P < 0.05, chi-squared test). The lowest healing rate (5.7%) was found in unclassified HE patients with disease duration over 6 months.

CONCLUSIONS

The outcome of HE was worse than eczema elsewhere. Allergic HE had a better prognosis than unclassified HE. Longer disease duration was the main risk factor for poor prognosis of unclassified HE.