The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
Background
- Also know as atopic eczema
- A chronic type of inflammatory skin disease affecting many children and adults
- Occasionally accompanied by asthma and/or hay fever. Patients develop a cutaneous hyperreactivity to environmental triggers.
- Cause is not known, but believed to be due to an interaction between susceptibility genes, the environment, defective skin barrier function, and immunologic responses.
Clinical Features
- Atopic personal or family history, worse in winter, dry weather
- Erythema, crusts, fissures, pruritis, excoriations, lichenification
Infantile
- blisters, crusts, exfoliations
- Face, scalp, extremities
- 1st few months of life, resolving by age 2
- Differentiate from impetigo (which may occur alongside)
Adults
- Dryness, thickening in AC and popliteal fossa, neck
Differential Diagnosis
Evaluation
- Clinical diagnosis
- Dry skin, erythematous papular lesions
- Face most commonly involved; nose and diaper areas spared
- Occurs between 2-6mo (somewhat later than seborrheic dermatitis)
- Pruritic (may manifest as fussiness) vs seborrheic (not pruritic)
Management
- Identify and eliminate triggers
- Reduce drying of skin
- Liberal application of emollients (vaseline)
- Triamcinolone, hydrocortisone, or betamethasone
- Avoid fluoridinated steroids to the face
- Consider doxepin for recalcitrant pruritis[1][2]
- 25-50mg PO qhs
- Or topical doxepin cream 5% QID
Disposition
Complications
See Also
References
- ↑ Hercogova J. Topical anti-itch therapy. Dermatol Ther 18(4):341-3 (2005 Jul-Aug).
- ↑ Drake L, Cohen L, Gillies R, et al. Pharmakinetics of doxepin in subjects with pruritic atopic dermatitis. J Am Acad Dermatol 41(2):209-14 (1999 Aug).