Mortality and cause of death in patients with pemphigus

All-cause and cause-specific mortality among patients with pemphigus compared with the general population is yet to be established. This study investigated overall mortality and cause-specific mortality in a large immunopathologically validated cohort of patients with pemphigus. Mortality of patients with pemphigus was compared with age- and gender-matched control subjects in the general population. All-cause and cause-specific standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were estimated. The study cohort included 245 patients newly-diagnosed with pemphigus between January 1990 and June 2016, contributing 2,679.4 person-years of follow-up. Overall, 48 deaths were observed during a mean follow-up period of 10.9 ± 8.1 years, which was more than twice the number expected (SMR 2.4; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.82–3.20). The SMRs for death due to infections (22.6; 95% CI 13.6–35.3), namely pneumonia (25.7; 95% CI 11.7–48.8) and septicaemia (8.6; 95% CI 1.7–25.0), and due to cardiovascular diseases (2.8; 95% CI 1.0–6.0) were significantly higher than expected. Overall mortality among patients with pemphigus is 2.4-times greater than for the general population, mainly due to infections.