Accompanying conditions in patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria and urticarial vasculitis: Results of a retrospective study

Abstract

Background and Design: Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU), the most common form of chronic urticaria, is characterized by spontaneous wheals and/or angioedema lasting longer than six weeks. Urticarial vasculitis (UV) is a small vessel vasculitis; but is also included in the various classification systems of chronic urticaria by some authors. The aim of our study was to evaluate the frequency of accompanying conditions, and to compare the demographic, clinical and laboratory features of patients with CSU and UV. Materials and Methods: In this study, the files of CSU (n=146) and UV (n=43) patients who had been hospitalized between January 2010-December 2013 were retrospectively reviewed in terms of demographic data, disease-specific history, accompanying diseases, medications and laboratory findings. Results: When comparing between the two groups for statistical differences, it was found that the frequencies of personal atopy and angioedema were significantly higher in patients with CSU; however, the patients with UV had significantly higher rates for female gender and the presence of systemic symptoms compared to those with CSU. It was determined that the mean values for erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein, as well as the rates of antinuclear antibody positivity and hypocomplementemia were significantly higher in the UV group, compared with those in the CSU group. Accompanying factors were determined as infections, medications, autoimmune diseases and malignities in order of frequency in both CSU and UV groups, but only the frequency of autoimmune diseases was significantly higher in patients with UV group.

Clinical Characteristics and Treatment Outcomes in Patients with Urticarial Vasculitis

“…The three most common extracutaneous findings of UV were arthralgia, dyspnea and conjunctivitis, respectively in our study. Similar to our study, the most common extracutaneous manifestation of UV has been reported as arthralgia in other studies [3,5,[7][8][9]. Other frequently reported findings included fever and abdominal pain [3,[6][7][8][9].…”

“…In our study, the possible factors that triggered the disease were drugs (NSAID, antibiotics) and infection, respectively. Previous studies have reported that drugs, infection and malignancy are the most common triggering factors of the disease [3,6,7]. OAH, OCS, azathioprine, colchicine, dapsone, hydroxychloroquine, doxepin and omalizumab were the treatments given to our patients.…”

“…The mean age of our patients was 45.2 and the mean duration of the disease was 72.1 months. When the literature information was reviewed, it was found that the mean age at diagnosis ranged between 35-51 years [5][6][7][8] and the mean disease duration was ranged from 24-56.3 months [7][8][9].…”

“…Elevated ESR in patients with UV is generally the most common abnormal laboratory finding [6,7,9]. Abnormal CBC, CRP elevation, and abnormal urine analysis are also not uncommon abnormal laboratory findings [5][6][7]9].…”

Comorbidity of chronic spontaneous urticaria and autoimmune thyroid diseases: A systematic review

“…No significant difference in the prevalence of elevated IgG‐anti‐TG and/or IgG‐anti‐TPO was observed between patients with CSU and patients with acute urticaria, urticarial vasculitis, rheumatoid arthritis, or systemic lupus erythematosus . In contrast, some studies showed that patients with CSU had significantly higher levels of IgG antithyroid AAbs compared to patients with acute and chronic inducible urticaria.…”