Prevalence of Hidradenitis Suppurativa in Dhaka, Bangladesh: A Hospital-Based Study

Background: The prevalence of hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) varies widely in different epidemiologic studies from different parts of the world and very few data are available from South Asia.

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HS in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

An exploratory, cross-sectional, and descriptive study was done among 2,500 consecutive healthy accompanying adults of patients attending at the outpatient department (except dermatology), at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. This was an initiative of Global Hidradenitis Suppurativa Atlas (GHiSA), and it therefore followed the approach previously published by Bouazzi et al. Results: Out of a total of 2,377 accompanying persons, 3 were diagnosed with HS. The point prevalence was 0.13% (CI: 0.04%-0.37%), sensitivity was 0.1 (3/3), specificity was 0.1 (23/23), positive predictive value positive predictive value (PPV) was 0.1 (3/3), and the negative predictive value was 0.1 (23/23). The median age of the HS patients was 45.0, and the median BMI was 28.0. All 3 confirmed HS were male.

The prevalence of HS in Bangladesh is lower than in western countries and other GHiSA studies like Singapore, Ghana, and Greenland.