Prevalence of Prurigo Nodularis Across Adult Populations

Speaker 1 (00:07):

So prurigo nodularis is an entity that we've recognized for a long time based on its characteristic clinical appearance of the, the nodules and the patients having the sensation that they have to pick at that area as opposed to diffusely scratching at, at their skin. And we've seen it sometimes associated with systemic diseases, and you know, patients may have some underlying renal problems or anemia. But other times we don't necessarily find anything that's associated.

(00:38):

Patients with atopic dermatitis, and they can happen at any age, they could be a very, very young, young children, they can be adolescents, they can be adults, typically more when they're adolescents or adults, can also develop prurigo nodularis lesions as part of that disease.

(00:55):

So we see it in different situations. Sometimes a standalone where we can't relate it to anything else. And that's typically going to be in an older population, even older adults or, or middle-aged adults. Or we can see it with atopic dermatitis, patients that have that entity. And they will often sometimes develop prurigo nodularis even earlier because they have that association.

(01:21):

One of the important observations that I can tell you for a lot of my career, I didn't appreciate, patients with prurigo nodularis who seem to be picking at individual areas. When you look at many of the patients that have been in studies for prurigo nodularis that are not necessarily atopic in their background, or have atopic dermatitis, they also had itching in other areas where they didn't have the prurigo nodularis. But the focus was on those areas where they were intensely having to pick at it, where they had almost like a burning sensation with the itching that they're picking.

(01:58):

So the fact that it was more diffuse really led a lot of us to believe that there's something else going on, there's something circulating, there's some systemic component, and that utilizing topical treatments or intralesional treatments isn't going to be enough, that these patients need to be treated on a higher systemic level.