Quality of life of the patients with balanitis

Balanitis is an inflammation of the glans penis that can be caused by a range of conditions and sometimes runs a chronic course. Male genital dermatoses are often neglected by the physician and therefore are underdiagnosed [You et al., 2016]. It is known that genital psoriasis has a significant negative impact on the quality of life of patients, however there is lack of data on other balanitis [Ryan et al., 2015]. The study aims to evaluate the quality of life in patients with chronic inflammatory balanitis and compare it between different nosologies. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Riga Stradiņš University. Twenty-nine patients with histopathologically confirmed psoriatic (N=7), lichen planus (N=12) and non-specific (N=9) balanitis were enrolled in the study. All patients had exclusively genital involvement and were asked to fill in a validated Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) questionnaire. The DLQI score and sub-scores were compared between groups using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Mean DLQI scores were higher in patients with psoriatic balanitis (M=10.00 SD=8.79), than in patients with lichen planus (M=4.25 SD=3.67) and non-specific balanitis (5.00 SD=3.84). The differences between groups were not statistically significant. There was a statistically significant difference (U=11 p=0.026) in the “Symptoms and feelings” sub-group score when comparing psoriatic balanitis (M=3.14 SD=1.77) to non-specific balanitis (M=1.22 SD=1.09). According to the DLQI score psoriatic balanitis with exclusively genital involvement seems to have a moderate effect on the patients’ life, while lichen planus and non-specific balanitis have a small effect on the patients’ life.