Demographic and Clinical Features and Factors Affecting the Quality of Life of Patients With Hidradenitis Suppurativa
abstract
This abstract is available on the publisher's site.
Access this abstract nowBACKGROUND
Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin disorder with well-known adverse effects on quality of life (QoL). Improving patients' QoL has become an important objective of treatment.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the demographic and clinical characteristics and factors affecting the QoL of patients with HS.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
One hundred seventy-six patients with HS aged between 18 and 65 years were included in the study. The patients' demographic and clinical characteristics, treatments, and comorbidities were recorded. The disease stage was determined based on the Hurley staging system. The Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) was used to evaluate QoL.
RESULTS
Mean DLQI scores were significantly higher in patients with advanced Hurley stages, lesions in the gluteal region and legs, and with more than 2 affected areas (p < .001). Correlations between patient-reported treatment outcomes and clinical characteristics of the patients were assessed. Findings of this study indicate the existence of a potential "window of opportunity" for laser epilation and wide local surgical excision, similar to anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy.
CONCLUSION
Timely and appropriate treatment can only be provided for patients with HS by evaluating objective disease severity measures and subjective patient data in combination.
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Additional Info
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Demographic and Clinical Features and Factors Affecting the Quality of Life of Patients With Hidradenitis Suppurativa: A Cross-sectional Study
Dermatol Surg 2024 Apr 02;[EPub Ahead of Print], HM Erol Mart, S Bostanci, D Caliskan OdabasFrom MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Any clinician who has interviewed patients with hidradenitis suppurativa knows that the disease causes a substantial negative impact on the quality of life (QoL). In this single-center cross-sectional study involving patients with hidradenitis suppurativa from Turkey, the authors aimed to identify the demographic, historical, or clinical features associated with worse effects on QoL, using readout scores from the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI). Their study confirms previous reports that patients with hidradenitis suppurativa have high DLQI scores, with the majority of the assessed patients having moderate, very large, or extremely large negative effects on their QoL. Unsurprisingly, a higher Hurley stage (their proxy for worse disease severity) and disease in multiple anatomic regions were associated with higher (worse) DLQI scores; interestingly, patients with lesions in the gluteal region had significantly worse QoL. Patients with a lower Hurley stage, nonsmokers, and those with a BMI ≤25 kg/m2 reported more benefit from anti-TNF therapy, but the results were not statistically significant — although the data are consistent with the possibility that these patients are more responsive, the study was underpowered to test this hypothesis. The authors contend that their results indicate the existence of a potential "window of opportunity" for clinicians to alter the trajectory of the disease course. Without longitudinal data demonstrating that patients with more advanced disease are less responsive to medical or surgical interventions, the "window of opportunity" model remains unproven.