Prevalence of Chronic Inducible Urticaria in Elderly Patients

No data currently exist regarding the epidemiology of chronic inducible urticarias (CIndUs) in the ≥65-year-old population.

The study aimed to determine the prevalence of CIndUs among elderly patients affected by chronic urticaria (CU).

The medical records of all patients referred to us with a diagnosis of CU from January 2008 to September 2020 were retrospectively reviewed, and the patients with CIndUs were identified. The subjects aged 65 years or above were included in the study.

The number of patients aged 65 years or above was 153 out of 1970 subjects affected by CU (7.77%; 92 females (60.13%); mean age 70.96 ± 4.22). Out of 153, 26 patients (16.99%; 20 females (76.9%); mean age 71.23 ± 2.6 years) were diagnosed with CIndUs. Most subjects (25/26; 96.15%) suffered from physical urticarias. Symptomatic dermographism was the most frequent, affecting 65.38% (17/26) of our patients, followed by cold urticaria (6/26 (23.08%) cases).

Our data seem to indicate that CIndUs may also affect the elderly, although it occurs less frequently in aging patients than in lower age groups.