Srihari Sahana, Poddar Shreya, Riyaz Najeeba, Kumar S Praveen, Chigullapalli Deepti, Shankar Vikas, Vyas Kapil, Verma Raejesh, Sangolli Prabhakar, Mittal Kumar, Podder Indrashis
From the Department of Dermatology, Adesh Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Bathinda, Punjab, India.
Department of Dermatology, Asansol District Hospital, West Bengal, India.
Indian J Dermatol. 2025 Sep-Oct;70(5):257-266. doi: 10.4103/ijd.ijd_523_24. Epub 2025 Sep 1.
Oncogenic pruritus or malignancy associated pruritus is an emerging cause of systemic pruritus in patients with malignancies. It is a debilitating condition and worsens the patient's quality of life, often interfering with their palliative care. Oncogenic pruritus can arise de-novo in such patients due to release of pruritogens and other inflammatory mediators from tumour cells into blood stream, or it may present as a component of paraneoplastic syndrome. A detailed history and clinical examination are necessary to rule out other causes of systemic pruritus. Objective evaluation of itch is recommended using various scales to evaluate the treatment response and assessing its severity. There is lack of clinical trials concerning the management of oncogenic pruritus and most information is derived from sporadic case reports. Despite being an important and emerging cause of pruritus during malignancy, this diagnosis is often missed and remains under-reported due to lack of awareness about this entity. This narrative review highlights the current understanding of this condition focusing on its causes, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and management, along with newer investigational drugs. These authors hope that the present review will generate awareness about this condition among treating physicians and enable its early diagnosis and appropriate management.
致癌性瘙痒或恶性肿瘤相关瘙痒是恶性肿瘤患者全身性瘙痒的一个新出现的原因。它是一种使人衰弱的病症，会恶化患者的生活质量，常常干扰他们的姑息治疗。致癌性瘙痒在这类患者中可能因肿瘤细胞释放致痒原和其他炎症介质进入血流而新发，或者它可能表现为副肿瘤综合征的一个组成部分。详细的病史和临床检查对于排除全身性瘙痒的其他原因是必要的。建议使用各种量表对瘙痒进行客观评估，以评估治疗反应并评估其严重程度。关于致癌性瘙痒管理的临床试验较少，大多数信息来自零星的病例报告。尽管它是恶性肿瘤期间瘙痒的一个重要且新出现的原因，但由于对该病症缺乏认识，这一诊断常常被漏诊且报告不足。这篇叙述性综述着重介绍了对这种病症的当前认识，重点关注其病因、发病机制、诊断和管理，以及新的研究性药物。这些作者希望本综述能提高治疗医生对这种病症的认识，并使其能够早期诊断和得到恰当管理。
