Relative changes in the pattern of diseases presenting in dermatology outpatient clinic in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract BACKGROUND As an increasing number of COVID-19 cases there were changes in the number of patients who attended to the dermatology outpatient clinics AIMS We aimed to investigate the change profiles of dermatologic diseases in the first and second months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey by comparing with the corresponding period of the previous year METHODS The total number and diagnosis of patients who attended a tertiary care hospital for the dermatology outpatient clinic between April 1 and May 31, 2020, were included in this study These data were compared with the corresponding period of the previous year RESULTS The percentage of the patients with scabies, contact dermatitis, psoriasis, pityriasis rosea, urticaria, alopecia areata were statistically significantly increased a month after the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic while the percentage of patients with scabies, alopecia areata, telogen effluvium, acne vulgaris, xerosis cutis were statistically significantly increased two months after the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic (p<0 05) CONCLUSION An increase in the number of certain diseases such as urticaria and pityriasis rosea may indicate the risk of asymptomatic COVID-19 carriage in these patients PCR and/or antibody-based further studies should be performed to explore whether certain dermatologic diseases are related to asymptomatic COVID-19 cases This article is protected by copyright All rights reserved