The global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management and course of chronic urticaria

Emek Kocatürk 1Andaç Salman 2Ivan Cherrez-Ojeda 3Paulo Ricardo Criado 4 5 6Jonny Peter 7Elif Comert-Ozer 2Mohamed Abuzakouk 8Rosana Câmara Agondi 9Mona Al-Ahmad 10Sabine Altrichter 11Rand Arnaout 12Luisa Karla Arruda 13Riccardo Asero 14Andrea Bauer 15Moshe Ben-Shoshan 16Jonathan A Bernstein 17Mojca Bizjak 18Isabelle Boccon-Gibod 19Hanna Bonnekoh 20 21Laurence Bouillet 19Zenon Brzoza 22Paula Busse 23Regis A Campos 24 25Emily Carne 26Niall Conlon 27Roberta F Criado 28Eduardo M de Souza Lima 29Semra Demir 30Joachim Dissemond 31Sibel Doğan Günaydın 32Irina Dorofeeva 33Luis Felipe Ensina 34Ragıp Ertaş 35Silvia Mariel Ferrucci 36Ignasi Figueras-Nart 37Daria Fomina 38 39Sylvie M Franken 40Atsushi Fukunaga 41Ana M Giménez-Arnau 42Kiran Godse 43Margarida Gonçalo 44Maia Gotua 45Clive Grattan 46Carole Guillet 47Naoko Inomata 48Thilo Jakob 49Gul Karakaya 50Alicja Kasperska-Zając 51Constance H Katelaris 52Mitja Košnik 18Dorota Krasowska 53Kanokvalai Kulthanan 54M Sendhil Kumaran 55Claudia Lang 47José Ignacio Larco-Sousa 56Elisavet Lazaridou 57Tabi Anika Leslie 58Undine Lippert 59Oscar Calderón Llosa 60Michael Makris 61Alexander Marsland 62Iris V Medina 63Raisa Meshkova 64Esther Bastos Palitot 65Claudio A S Parisi 66Julia Pickert 67German D Ramon 68Mónica Rodríguez-Gonzalez 69Nelson Rosario 70Michael Rudenko 71Krzysztof Rutkowski 72Jorge Sánchez 73Sibylle Schliemann 74Bulent Enis Sekerel 75Faradiba S Serpa 76Esther Serra-Baldrich 77Zhiqiang Song 78Angèle Soria 79Maria Staevska 80Petra Staubach 81Anna Tagka 82Shunsuke Takahagi 83Simon Francis Thomsen 84Regina Treudler 85Zahava Vadasz 86Solange Oliveira Rodrigues Valle 87Martijn B A Van Doorn 88Christian Vestergaard 89Nicola Wagner 90Dahu Wang 91Liangchun Wang 92Bettina Wedi 93Paraskevi Xepapadaki 94Esra Yücel 95Anna Zalewska-Janowska 96Zuotao Zhao 97Torsten Zuberbier 21Marcus Maurer 98

Affiliations

01 March 2021

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doi: 10.1111/all.14687


Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupts health care around the globe. The impact of the pandemic on chronic urticaria (CU) and its management are largely unknown.

Aim: To understand how CU patients are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic; how specialists alter CU patient management; and the course of CU in patients with COVID-19.

Materials and methods: Our cross-sectional, international, questionnaire-based, multicenter UCARE COVID-CU study assessed the impact of the pandemic on patient consultations, remote treatment, changes in medications, and clinical consequences.

Results: The COVID-19 pandemic severely impairs CU patient care, with less than 50% of the weekly numbers of patients treated as compared to before the pandemic. Reduced patient referrals and clinic hours were the major reasons. Almost half of responding UCARE physicians were involved in COVID-19 patient care, which negatively impacted on the care of urticaria patients. The rate of face-to-face consultations decreased by 62%, from 90% to less than half, whereas the rate of remote consultations increased by more than 600%, from one in 10 to more than two thirds. Cyclosporine and systemic corticosteroids, but not antihistamines or omalizumab, are used less during the pandemic. CU does not affect the course of COVID-19, but COVID-19 results in CU exacerbation in one of three patients, with higher rates in patients with severe COVID-19.

Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic brings major changes and challenges for CU patients and their physicians. The long-term consequences of these changes, especially the increased use of remote consultations, require careful evaluation.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; UCARE; chronic urticaria; cyclosporine; omalizumab; pandemic; treatment.


 


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