Atopic dermatitis is a chronic relapsing inflammatory skin disease that is highly pruritic. Its treatment is still challenging. This is mainly due to its complex and multifactorial pathogenesis with environmental contribution. Chronic itch being one of the defining feature of AD, is responsible for much of the burden. It affects disease severity and has a profound impact on the patient's and family's quality of life. Much of the therapy is aimed at symptom control so as to at least maintain the quality of life or at most to improve it. The disease severity determines treatment modalities needed for every case. Different scores for disease assessment are used including SCORAD score.
Aim of the study:
The aim of this work was to study the interleukin 31 levels in Atopic Dermatitis and its relation to disease severity.
Patients and methods:
This study included 30 atopic dermatitis patients and 15 controls.
Inclusion criteria: All patients who were treated for atopic dermatitis at the Alexandria University hospital dermatology clinic.
Exclusion criteria: Patients who had other dermatological conditions.
Demographic and clinical information were obtained from the patients or guardians. The disease severity was determined using the SCORAD (Scoring of Atopic Dermatitis) index. The Atopic Dermatitis Control Tool (ADCT) was used to assess the patients' disease control.Blood was also obtained for analysis.Serum IL-31 levels were measured using ELISA with standard kits from Wuhan Fine Biotech Co., Ltd. China. All the analyses were performed according to the manufacturer's protocol.The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.0.