Background The focus of research and management of Dupuytren’s disease (DD) is shifting from relieving symptoms in the later stages of disease towards the prevention of contractures. Treatment services might likewise shift towards primary care. Studying characteristics of DD patients who seek medical care for the first time, may identify a symptomatic target group for early DD treatments. We present the first study that estimates the incidence and prevalence of DD in primary care by applying a text-mining algorithm to registration data.

Methods This is a population-based cohort study using electronic health records from Dutch general practices involved in a regional research network. Descriptive statistics were used to describe sex, age, comorbidities and lifestyle factors, the latter two were identified via International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) codes. Incidence rate was calculated as number of patients with a first contact for DD/1000 person years for the years 2017 to 2021, point prevalence as the percentage of patients with a contact for DD in 2021. DD contacts were identified using a text-mining algorithm.

Results The incidence ranged between 1.41 to 1.72/1000 person years and the overall prevalence was 1.99%. Incidence and prevalence are higher among males and increase with age, peaking between 61 to 80 years.

Conclusions Our results of prevalence and incidence of DD in primary care give an insight into the relevant population of patients with symptomatic DD that might be the future target group for potential disease controlling treatments.

PW is member of a Data Monitoring Committee of Fidia ltd, Milan, Italy. PW is member of the scientific advisory board of the International Dupuytren Society, and PW and DB are both members of the scientific advisory board of the Dutch Dupuytren Society. These interests are not related to the submitted work. All other authors declare no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This research was partly funded by the C&W de Boer foundation.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

This study was approved by the medical ethics committee of the UMCG (METc UMCG 202100077).

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The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author and AHON commission on reasonable request.