Urticaria and its differential diagnosis from blistering skin diseases

 

Agnė Alseikaitė1

¹Lithuanian university of health sciences,medical academy, faculty of medicine, Kaunas, Lithuania

ABSTRACT

About 10-20% of the human population experience at least one episode of acute urticaria and 0.1% develop a chronic spontaneous urticaria.

Aim: To analyse the aspects of urticaria differential diagnosis from blistering skin diseases.

Methods:The demographics (sex, age) and medical history data (case-history, symptoms of diseases, risk factors, rash types) of 52 patients with urticaria (n = 36) and blistering skin diseases (n = 16) treated from 01.01.2015 to 01.03.2017 at Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics Department of Skin and Venereal Diseases and Department of Paediatrics were analysed retrospectively. The results of blood tests (monocytes, eosinophils, ASO and IgE) and skin biopsy data(IgG and IgA class antibodies) were analysed in these patients. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS. Data difference was considered significant when p<0.05.

Results: The study involved 52 patients – 34 women (65%) and 18 men (35%), from which 24 were children up to 18 years old age (46%) and 28 were adults (54%) with an average age of 52±1,3 years. Urticaria were more common in children than in adults (n=24, 66.7% and n=12, 33.3% respectively) whereas blistering skin diseases were diagnosed only in adults (n=16). Women were more likely to have urticaria and blistering skin diseases than men (63.9% and 36.1%, and 68.8% and 31.3%, respectively, p<0.05).

Conclusions: Children are twice as likely to have urticaria as adults, and women are twice as likely to have blistering skin disease and urticaria than men.

Urticaria mostly occurs after bacterial or viral infections and twice as likely occurs in children than in adults, and in adults the most common risk factor is other autoimmune diseases; Duhring’s disease is associated with food.

Keywords: allergology; blistering skin disease; urticaria; dermatology.