Early respiratory infection burden is associated with atopic dermatitis (AD) diagnosis in childhood, according to a study published online July 29 in JAMA Dermatology.
Nicklas Brustad, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and colleagues examined whether early infection burden and infection subtypes are associated with childhood AD in a cohort study using data from children ages 0–10 years in the 2010 Danish Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC2010) birth cohort (663 children). Replication was explored in the U.S. Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction Trial (VDAART) cohort (707 children).
The researchers found that being in the upper versus lower tertiles of infection episodes and days in COPSAC2010 was associated with an increased risk of yearly AD prevalence during ages 0–10 years in a generalized estimating equation model (adjusted odds ratio, 1.61 and 1.69, respectively). The risk of AD was higher with each infection episode, independent of systemic antibiotic treatments and filaggrin gene (FLG) variants. Respiratory infections were the main driver of the associations.
In VDAART, children in the upper versus lowest tertiles of infection episodes had a significantly increased risk of AD at ages 0–6 years (odds ratio, 1.76), with an increase seen with each infection episode (odds ratio, 1.03).
