A global study evaluated 333 diseases and injuries in 195 countries

Acne may have wider-ranging and longer-term effects than skin cancer claims the Global Burden of Disease Study, an initiative for quantifying health costs funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The study evaluated 333 diseases and injuries in 195 countries and territories. Using 11,552 data sources from 2016, it divided more than 1000 skin diseases into categories.

The new system for the classification of skin diseases by injury could lead to the shift of research priorities and change the way dermatologists see their patients, senior author Robert Dellavalle, PhD, from the University of Colorado in Denver, told Medscape Medical News.

Weighing the relative importance of shortened lifespan with disabilities, researchers give patients hypothetical choices between years of life and years of various kinds of disability. The aim is to measure how the participants weigh the effects.

Example: They could tell patients who have suffered a stroke to imagine they have 10 years left to live and ask them how many years of life they would give in exchange for never having the stroke. If the average patient was willing to give up 5 years of life for the cure, researchers would assign the stroke to 50% of the year's life.

In the Global Burden of Disease Study, skin conditions accounted for 60 million disability-adjusted life-years, which is about 2.5%.

This made skin diseases the 11th most harmful health problem in the categories used by the study, which were ranked.

The study was presented at the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) 2018 Annual Meeting.

You can read the entire article in Medscape Medical News.