Assessment of Response to Therapy and Survival Rate among Pemphigus Patients: A Retrospective Single Centre Study

Background

An autoimmune progressive condition called pemphigus causes the immune system to target cells in the mucous membranes and the epidermis unintentionally. In India it has a greater incidence of 4.4 per 100,000 people. There are very limited data available on pemphigus survival/mortality in India. Thus, the study aimed to analyze the treatment strategy and to determine the response to treatment and survival among pemphigus patients.

Materials and Methods

A retrospective single-centre study was conducted for eight months at a tertiary care hospital analyzing 10 years of data for all pemphigus patients above 18 years of age. Patients with incomplete clinical or demographic data, as well as those who did not respond to telephone calls made for survival status assessment, were excluded from the study. Data was analyzed using SPSS 29.0 for descriptive and survival outcomes.

Results

Out of 51 pemphigus patients, females (50.98%) were predominant over males (49.01%) with a mean age of 49.31±14.7 years. Most of the patients had moderate (37.25%) followed by significant severity (62.74%). Further, the majority of patients were treated with corticosteroids followed by adjuvant therapy. Age was found to be a significant predictor (p-value<0.05) of survival among pemphigus patients, i.e. age group ≤ 45 years has improved survival as compared to >45 years of age.

Conclusion

The overall survival at the end of 10-year was found to be 86.3% which signifies that pemphigus patients can be well managed with corticosteroid and adjuvant therapy.