The relationship between infantile atopic dermatitis and urinary tract infection

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is one of the most common infantile diseases. Immunological dysfunctions in AD patients may predispose them to infections. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between infantile AD and urinary tract infection (UTI).In this cross sectional study, we enrolled 57 patients with AD aged 1 to 24 months that referred to dermatology clinic, and 57 healthy controls who were referred to pediatric clinic. The groups were matched according to age and gender. Urine samples were collected by clean-voided bag method. If a single organism was cultured at concentration of > or = 105 organisms per millimeter and the existence of white blood cells more than 10 per microscopic field was seen the patients underwent suprapubic aspiration. The presence of one organism in suprapubic aspiration sample was regarded as positive culture. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 15 software. P value <0.05 was considered as the level of significance. Twelve (21.1%) of AD patients and 1(1.8%) of normal controls had positive urine culture tests. The difference between two groups was statistically significant (p = 0.001). The most common bacteria was E-coli. Infants with AD showed a higher frequency of UTI in this study. So, we suggest screening all AD infants for urinary tract infection.