Project Details
Projekt
Biological and Psychosocial Factors Affecting the Persistence of Pruritus Symptoms (RU SOMACROSS Project 4)
Applicants
Professor Dr. Stefan Werner Schneider; Professorin Dr. Gudrun Schneider; Professorin Dr. Sonja Ständer
Subject Area
Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
Dermatology
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Dermatology
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 445297796
Chronic pruritus (CP), or persistent itching, is a symptom of many dermatologic, neurologic, systemic and psychosomatic diseases. CP has a prevalence of approx. 20% in the general population and is therefore a significant burden on society, but the transition from acute pruritus to CP is not well understood and probably involves interactions between multiple biological, environmental and psychosocial factors. Acute pruritus is triggered by chemical, physical or mechanical stimuli, whereupon neuro-immune crosstalk is best understood and has the highest clinical relevance. The transition to CP is likely to involve pruritus-specific risk factors as well as mechanisms shared with other persistent somatic symptoms, which are addressed in other projects of the RU SOMACROSS programme.We aim to identify psychosocial and biological factors, as well as their interactions, contributing to the persistence of CP with and without neuro-immune cutaneous crosstalk. In addition, we expect that psychosocial factors relevant to the persistence of symptoms in conditions such as fatigue and pain, including somatosensory amplification, illness anxiety, depression, stress, and symptom or treatment outcome expectations, may also contribute to CP.Three cohorts of patients (n = 40 each) with acute and chronic atopic dermatitis (immunologic background) and CP patients with unaffected skin (non-immunologic background) will be recruited for a comprehensive translational investigation. This will address pruritus-specific and all shared psychosocial assessments in the RU SOMACROSS programme, including neurological parameters (using quantitative sensory testing), cutaneous nerve fibre morphology, skin barrier morphology, epidermal metabolism, and pruritogen blood levels. Within one year, patients and matched healthy controls (n = 80) will be investigated at three time points, allowing the cross-sectional comparison of acute atopic dermatitis, chronic atopic dermatitis, CP on unaffected skin, and healthy controls, and a longitudinal investigation of predictive outcome factors in these patients under treatment according to existing guidelines.We expect to identify pruritus-specific psychosocial and biological factors (including peripheral skin barrier effects and central neuronal sensitization processes), as well as mechanisms shared with other persistent somatic symptoms, which interact to promote the persistence of CP symptoms. These results will be transferred to the clinic to improve the treatment of CP and will allow the development of new hypotheses explaining the persistence of other chronic somatic symptoms.
DFG Programme
Research Units
