Digital Health and Chronic Urticaria
摘要
Chronic urticaria (CU) is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease characterized by recurrent itchy wheals and angioedema for longer than 6 weeks. CU significantly impacts patients’ quality of life and needs effective long-term treatment aimed at complete control. To achieve this aim, digital resources can help in multiple ways. Here, we review digital health measures currently used in urticaria management and urticariology. Several digital tools and platforms aim to improve patient and physician education on urticaria as well as monitoring of CU activity, impact, control, and response to treatment. CRUSE, the chronic urticaria self-evaluation app and an example of the latter, can also enhance digital patient–physician communication, another important aim of digital tools used in CU. Leveraging digital technologies such as online platforms like UCARE 4 U and LevelUp and telemedicine can play a positive role in advancing comprehensive patient care. Furthermore, data obtained with digital health measures such as registries, e.g., Chronic Urticaria Registry (CURE), can improve CU understanding and aid the development of novel treatment approaches and personalized therapy. In the following, we summarize the latest knowledge on the use and potential of digital health technologies in CU.