Prevalent in 14-17 % of the population, chronic pruritus is among the most common and stressful symptoms in medicine. In spite of new findings regarding the origin and chronification of the symptom, therapy remains a great challenge. There is a lack of approved therapies that provide rapid and efficient reduction of pruritus. As a result, the affected patients suffer a long time (even months to years), and somatic (scratch lesions, super infections, sleep disorders) and psychosomatic disorders develop. Interdisciplinary cooperation with various specialists is important not just for these reasons, but also due to different etiologies of the symptom and common comorbidities. In addition, there remains a great need for uniformly devised, clinically controlled studies, recommendations and guidelines. New therapeutic approaches are currently being verified in clinical trials. This allows for future prospects of possible new and partially targeted therapies. This article provides a summary of current therapeutic options based on case series, individual randomized controlled trials and the current S2K guideline.
Keywords: Anticonvulsants; Comorbidities; Naltrexone; Neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist; Prurigo.