Prevalence of Hidradenitis Suppurativa in Fars Province, Iran

Introduction: Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a persistent and inflammatory skin condition that greatly diminishes the quality of life of the patients and frequently develops because of occlusion of the hair follicles. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of HS among the Iranian population residing in Fars province.

This study was a cross-sectional study that was conducted at Shahid Faghihi Clinic at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The study included over 18-year-old healthy individuals who accompanied patients that had attended our center for non-dermatological care. The interviewers handed out a screening questionnaire on HS to the study participants, and then those individuals who were suspicious of having HS were examined by a dermatologist to verify if the individual has HS. The dermatologist also examined 10% of participants who reported no HS symptoms to reduce bias. The data analysis was conducted by using RStudio version 1.3.1093.

The results of our study indicated that 3 out of the 990 study participants suffered from HS, putting the prevalence of HS at 0.3% (95% CI: 0.10%-0.89%). After physically examining 3 questionnaire-positive HS individuals, we confirmed their assertion (sensitivity: 1.0). After screening 10% of the individuals negative for HS, the specificity was 0.83, positive predictive value was 0.13, and negative predictive value was 1. Moreover, this study found that the participants with and without HS had similar characteristics in terms of gender, age, and body mass index.

It seems that the prevalence of HS in Iran is lower in comparison with many other countries. Gender, age, and BMI were similar in HS and non-HS participants. Future research is recommended to evaluate the other characteristics of this disease in Iran.