Frequency of hand eczema in the elderly: Cross-sectional findings from the German AugUR study.

BACKGROUND: Hand eczema (HE) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease caused by a genetic predisposition and environmental exposures. There is a lack of population-based studies on skin diseases in the elderly. OBJECTIVES: Our aim was to estimate the frequency of HE in the elderly to determine its burden of disease in this particular population. METHODS: We analyzed data from the research platform AugUR, a study on chronic diseases in the elderly (n = 1133, ages 70-95 years, mean age 77.6, 45.1% women). Raw frequencies were estimated using self-reports on physician-diagnosed HE from a standardized personal interview. Frequencies were standardized to the Bavarian population weighted by gender and 5-year age-groups. RESULTS: In our sample 2.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.6-4.3) of the paticipants reported to ever have been diagnosed with HE. Among those 57% were male. After standardization, the frequency was estimated at 2.8% (95% CI 1.9-3.9). There were no differences between male and female participants. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to other studies on lifetime frequency of HE, our estimates seem to be remarkably lower. More in-depth studies with validated diagnoses are warranted to precisely estimate the burden of HE in the elderly.