Novartis real world study shows almost half of chronic urticaria patients are not receiving any treatment despite significant disease burden - Seite 2

"Chronic urticaria is a serious disease that greatly impacts the quality of life, yet seems to be severely undertreated," said Vas Narasimhan, Global Head, Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer, Novartis. "These findings reinforce the urgent need to improve the management of chronic urticaria in line with treatment guidelines, calling for a treatment goal of a 'symptom free patient'." 

More than half of the patients reported the effect of CU on their QOL as moderate, very large, or extremely large. This substantial QOL impact was observed in 51% in Southern European countries (Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece), 54% of patients in Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), 56% of German patients, 61% of UK patients, and as many as 85% of Russian patients.

Importantly, many patients receiving treatment still reported a substantial QOL impact, indicating inadequate symptom relief even in those currently on therapy. Nordic patients were most likely to be receiving any treatment (74%), followed by patients in Germany (61%), South European countries (58%), the UK (52%), and Russia (39%).

About CU
CU is a severe disease that is characterized by the reoccurrence of persistent hives and/or sometimes painful swelling for six weeks or more[2].

At any given time, the prevalence of CU is up to 1% of the world's population, and up to two thirds of these patients have CSU[7] - a form of the condition that can occur unpredictably without an identifiable trigger[6],[7]. In 30 to 50% of cases, CU lasts for up to a year, however in a substantial amount of patients CU can last anything from 1 to 5 years and in some it can last for decades[2].

Although CU has a significant impact on patients' quality of life, research has highlighted that some physicians disregard the disease as a trivial condition[2],[11].

About AWARE
AWARE (A World-wide Antihistamine-Refractory Chronic Urticaria Patient Evaluation) is an ongoing prospective observational study designed to assess CU in the real-life setting. These baseline interim results are from 12 European countries included in the study. Data was collected from patients aged 18 years or older and refractory to at least one course of H1-AH, and included pharmacological treatments and QOL measured by the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI).