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ORPHA:901

Wells syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Eosinophilic cellulitis

Publications

2,659

Trials

9

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

966

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Wells syndrome is characterised by the presence of recurrent cellulitis-like eruptions with eosinophilia.

How rare: <1 / 1 000 000 — fewer than one in a million. In a city the size of Kolkata, that might mean on the order of fifteen people.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (2)

Familial Eosinophilic Cellulitis · eosinophilic cellulitis

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

3/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    2,659 matched papers (1,317 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    9 HPO annotations (e.g. Arthralgia; Pruritus; Cellulitis) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    9 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (1 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

9

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0019547

  • Arthralgia
  • Pruritus
  • Cellulitis
  • Vasculitis
  • Edema

Showing 5 of 9 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

2,659

2,659 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

2,659 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

1,317 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 2,659 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

966

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Elsner P4 papers · 2019

    Klinik für Hautkrankheiten, Universitätsklinikum, Jena, Deutschland.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Marzano AV4 papers · 2026

    Dermatology Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy. angelo.marzano@unimi.it.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Chiheb S3 papers · 2025

    Dermatology Unit, Cheikh Khalifa International University Hospital, Mohammed VI University of Health Sciences, Casablanca, MAR.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Lu J3 papers · 2023

    Department of Dermatology, The Fifth People's Hospital of Hainan Province, Branch of National Clinical Research Center for Skin and Immune Disease, Haikou, Hainan, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Peckruhn M3 papers · 2019

    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Jena, Jena, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Tittelbach J3 papers · 2019

    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital, Jena, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Wang L3 papers · 2026

    Department of Stomatology, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 139 Middle Renmin Road, Changsha, 410011, Hunan, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Aimilios L2 papers · 2026

    First Dermatology Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Antonini D2 papers · 2026

    Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Napoli, Italy; CEINGE Biotecnologie Avanzate Franco Salvatore, 80145 Napoli, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Baltissen MPA2 papers · 2026

    Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

9

interventional trials for this specific condition

9 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

9 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 92th percentile).

low confidence · 92th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

9 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 22 · after dedupe 22 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 22 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-29

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (22)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Wells syndrome — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Wells syndrome" OR "Eosinophilic cellulitis" OR "Familial Eosinophilic Cellulitis"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Wells syndrome" OR "Eosinophilic cellulitis" OR "Familial Eosinophilic Cellulitis"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 9 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (2659) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-26T15:50:31.924Z