ArticleThe Australasian journal of dermatology2022
Why do some patients with vulval lichen sclerosus on long-term topical corticosteroid treatment experience ongoing poor quality of life?
Article in The Australasian journal of dermatology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of anxiety on vulvar dermatological diseases: a systematic review.International journal of women's dermatology · 2026Review
- Urinary Incontinence Among Female Patients with Lichen Sclerosus: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International urogynecology journal · 2026Review
- Efficacy of Fractional COLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Laser Therapy for Vulvar Lichen Sclerosus, a Systematic Review.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Why do some patients with vulval lichen sclerosus on long-term topical corticosteroid treatment experience ongoing poor quality of life?The Australasian journal of dermatology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo identify reasons for ongoing poor quality of life (pQOL) in a subset of long-term topical corticosteroid-treated vulval lichen sclerosus (VLS) patients.
methodsA prospective cross-sectional study of patients attending a dermato-gynaecology practice in Sydney, Australia, comparing VLS patients with good quality of life (gQOL) and pQOL, in pre-treatment and long-term treatment groups, using the Vulval Quality of Life Index (VQLI). Demographics, VQLI scores and treatment characteristics were compared between gQOL and pQOL patients.
resultsA total of 255 biopsy-proven VLS patients, 67 in pre-treatment and 188 in long-term treated groups were considered. There were 33 (49.3%) pQOL patients in pre-treatment and 13 (6.9%) in treatment groups (p < 0.001). The highest-scoring domain in treated pQOL patients was sexuality (1.7 [interquartile range (IQR) 1.0-2.0]), followed by anxiety [1.3 (IQR 1.0-1.5]), symptoms (1.0 [IQR 0.5-1.5]) and activities of daily living (0.7 [IQR 0.3-1.0]). Compared to treated gQOL, treated pQOL had significantly higher proportions of patients with partial treatment adherence (8 [61.5%] vs 42 [24.0%], p = 0.006), suboptimal disease control (7 [53.8%] vs 20 [11.4%], p < 0.001), scarring progression (3 [23.1%] vs 7 [4.0%], p = 0.024) and urinary incontinence (5 [38.5%] vs 27 [15.4%], p = 0.049).
conclusionsOnly a minority of long-term treated VLS patients reported ongoing pQOL. Of those who did, sexuality and anxiety domains were found to be the main sources of distress. Three major areas distinguishing gQOL from pQOL patients were (1) treatment adherence and disease control, (2) psychological factors and (3) urinary incontinence.
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