NCT02823067

Pruritus and Pemphigoid in Nursing Home Patients

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 125 (actual)
• Sponsor: M.F. Jonkman · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The primary objective of this observational study is to describe the prevalence of pruritus and pemphigoid in nursing home patients. Secondary outcomes are the relationships of demographic factors and medical risk factors with pemphigoid, including dementia and neuropsychiatric symptoms, medication use and Karnofsky score.

Detailed description

Pruritus or itch is the most common skin symptom in elderly patients and is estimated to affect more than 30% of nursing home patients. Clinical and experimental evidence suggests pruritus in elderly patients may be linked to pemphigoid. Pemphigoid is the most common autoimmune skin blistering diseases and mainly affects the elderly. It is successfully treatable with systemic therapy. However, pemphigoid is often missed as a cause of pruritus in elderly patients (nonbullous cutaneous pemphigoid). Although nursing home patients and patients with dementia in particular have the highest risk for development of pemphigoid, no study has been performed in this population so far. Including serological screening for pemphigoid in the diagnostic evaluation of chronic pruritus in nursing home patients may lead to the diagnosis of pemphigoid. Furthermore, chronic itch may be an unrecognized cause of neuropsychiatric symptoms in nursing home patients with dementia.

Conditions

• Pemphigoid
• Pruritus

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Blood sample	One extra blood sample of 10 ml will be taken during a routine venapunction for immunoserology testing.

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-06-01
• Primary completion: 2018-01-01
• Completion: 2018-01-01
• First posted: 2016-07-06
• Last updated: 2018-10-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Netherlands