Relationship Between Hypogammaglobulinemia and Severity of Atopic Dermatitis

Abstract

Background: Atopic dermatitis is an itchy, inflammatory, chronic, or chronically relapsing skin disease. Thedisease occurs in people who have an atopic tendency or may appear as a clinical sign of primaryimmunodeficiency.Objectives: To determine the relation between severity of atopic dermatitis and hypogammaglobulinemia.Methods: One hundred sixty pediatric patients with atopic dermatitis (98 boys and 62 girls, 1e60 monthsold, median age 14.5 months) and 95 healthy children (57 boys and 38 girls, median age 16 months; controlgroup) were included in the study. In patients with atopic dermatitis, the severity of disease was determinedby the SCORing Atopic Dermatitis index. Serum immunoglobulin levels of all patients and children in thecontrol group were measured by nephelometry on admission.Results: The incidence of hypogammaglobulinemia was higher in patients with atopic dermatitis than in thecontrol group (P = .009). The main reason for this difference was the low level of IgG in the atopic dermatitisgroup (P = .024). Analysis of the relation between hypogammaglobulinemia and the severity of atopicdermatitis showed no statistically significant difference between the group with mild to moderate atopicdermatitis and the group with severe atopic dermatitis with respect to hypogammaglobulinemia (P = .859),IgG (P = .068), IgA (P = .410), and IgM (P = .776) values.Conclusion: Hypogammaglobulinemia was more frequent in patients with atopic dermatitis compared withthe control group, mostly owing to the low IgG level. Hypogammaglobulinemia is not associated with theseverity of atopic dermatitis. © 2014 American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.