Objective evaluation for severity of atopic dermatitis by morphologic study of skin surface contours

Wide variation in outcome methodology can make the interpretation of patient outcomes confusing and the comparison of the results of different studies almost impossible. It is important to objectively measure and record the severity of atopic dermatitis (AD) for routine clinical practice and research. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether morphologic study of skin surface contours might be helpful to objectively quantify the severity of AD.

Thirty atopic patients (12 females, 18 males) participated in this study. Moisturizer was applied twice daily for 2 weeks. Bioengineering methods such as D-Squame, corneometer, evaporimeter, and spectrophotometer were measured at the start of the study and after 1 week and 2 weeks. In addition, we assessed moisturizer effects after 3 h of moisturizer application.The stereoimage optical topometer (SOT) based on a new concept of stereoimage was applied for this study. We compared SOT, other bioengineering methods, and the severity scoring of atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) index.

After 3 h of application with moisturizer, the results measured by SOT, conventional optical profilometer (COP), D-Squame, and corneometer showed significant differences (P<0.05). After 1 and 2 weeks, there were significant changes in the results measured by SOT, COP, D-Squame, corneometer, spectrophotometer, and SCORAD index. We observed a significant correlation between bioengineering methods and the SCORAD index (P<0.05).

These data indicate that morphologic study of skin surface contours are useful in evaluating of AD severity. If we would combine methods to evaluate the physiologic changes and those such as SOT to measure the morphological changes of skin surface, we could evaluate more objectively and quantitatively the severity of AD.