Prevalence, incidence and presence of comorbidities in patients with prurigo and pruritus in Germany: A population-based claims data analysis.

Abstract

There are currently no published population-based data on prurigo and pruritus epidemiology in Germany. We present the prevalence, incidence and comorbidity frequency of prurigo and pruritus in Germany. This was a retrospective healthcare research study based on anonymized routine data from the German health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit. Evaluations were carried out for 2006003 adults who were insured as of 31 December 2010. Prurigo and pruritus diagnoses were based on International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, German Modification (ICD-10-GM) codes. Prevalence was determined to be 0.21% (adjusted for sex and age 0.19%) for prurigo and 2.21% (adjusted 2.14%) for pruritus in 2010. The adjusted rates extrapolated to the total German population in 2010 show that 130685 adults would have received a prurigo diagnosis and 1461024 a diagnosis of pruritus. In 2011, incidence of new prurigo and pruritus cases was 0.13% (adjusted 0.12%, extrapolated 77263 cases) and 1.51% (adjusted 1.46%, extrapolated 978885), respectively. Adults with prurigo suffered most frequently from hypertension (35.16%), hyperlipidaemia (24.95%) and depression (21.97%); all were reported more frequently in patients with prurigo compared with the general population (P<0.001). Similarly, adults with pruritus suffered most frequently from hypertension (31.28%), hyperlipidaemia (23.52%) and depression (18.91%) compared with patients without pruritus (P<0.001). Our data show that prurigo is a relatively rare but significant disease and that pruritus is frequent and very variable in appearance, and both have a high comorbidity burden.