Skin writometer: A novel instrument for assessing provocation threshold in patients with symptomatic dermographism

Abstract

Symptomatic dermographism, a type of physical urticaria is a common condition affecting patient’s quality of life. For its diagnosis, clinicians in India currently use tip of the ball point pen for estimating the provocation threshold. However, because of single tip of fixed length, ball point pen can-not differentiate between different grades of symptomatic dermographism. With variations in the intensity of stroke, there is a possibility of even missing the diagnosis. Hence, there is a need of a better method to diagnose symptomatic dermographism and determine the provocation threshold. Skin writometer, a plastic instrument with three arms of varying length can be novel in this regards. This instrument is simple, user friendly, easy to use and inexpensive. It can be used for diagnosis as well as assessment of treatment response in patients with symptomatic dermographism.