1 in 10 U.S. Adults Have Physician-Diagnosed Chronic Hand Eczema, Study Shows | Fall Clinical Derm 2025

Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. adults report having physician-diagnosed chronic head eczema, according to findings from a cross-sectional survey that were presented at the 2025 Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference in Las Vegas today.

Chronic hand eczema (CHE) is defined as hand eczema that lasts for more than three months or relapses twice or more within a year. The CHECK (Chronic Hand Eczema epidemiology Care, and Knowledge) study is the first of its kind to quantify the prevalence of chronic hand eczema, according to a news release announcing the result from LEO Pharma.

“These highly powered survey results provide compelling evidence that chronic hand eczema (or CHE) is a common skin disease in the United States,” Raj Chovatiya, M.D., Ph.D., the lead investigator of the CHECK study and an associate professor at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science Chicago Medical School, said in a news release. “By deepening our understanding of its prevalence and identifying who is most likely to have CHE, we can better quantify the broader social and economic burden of this debilitating disease.”

According to the news release, the CHECK study enrolled more than 10,000 adults, ages 18 to 69. Chovatiya and his colleagues found that 9.6% of respondents self-reported a physician diagnosis of CHE. Data from the study show a higher prevalence among men, participants who are employed, those under 40 years of age and residents of urban areas, highlighting important demographic patterns in the burden of CHE, according to the news release.

Findings from a similar study conducted in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. and reported in the British Journal of Dermatology in May 2025 found that approximately 5% (2,847 of 60,131) of the respondents had had chronic hand eczema diagnosed by a physician in the past year. That study found physician-diagnosed conditions were most common among people ages 30 to 39 and lowest in those who were 60 to 69 years old, and more common among women, employed people, people in their 30s, and people living in urban areas.

Research findings from the CHECK study were summarized in other posters presented at the Fall Clinical meeting, which elaborated on the core prevalence findings. For example, almost two-thirds (65.1%) of the 982 of the study’s respondents who reported having physician-diagnosed chronic hand eczema rated their disease as moderate to severe, and more than 80% reported that they were being treated either systemic or topical treatment, according to one poster. Despite treatment, they rated the symptoms of their chronic hand eczema — which include itch, pain and sleep disturbances—as persistent and were still commonly rated as moderate in severity.

Other findings addressed work and other issues in chronic hand eczema. Approximately 28% of the respondents who had chronic hand eczema attributed their condition to the kind of work they do and 35%, to everyday activities.

The substantial negative impact of chronic hand eczema on patients was supported by another poster that demonstrated there were significantly higher out-of-pocket costs per month for emollients or other topical treatments for patients with moderate to severe chronic hand eczema compared to those with a mild case of the disease.

“Hands are essential to many daily activities, social interactions and types of work. The ability to function without pain, itch and fissures is often taken for granted, but many patients living with chronic hand eczema find it is debilitating,” said Shannon Schneider, vice president of North America Medical Affairs, LEO Pharma, in a news release. “This collective data highlights that the burden of chronic hand eczema extends far beyond what is visually apparent on the skin, emphasizing the importance of more treatment options to improve disease management.”