Analysis of pediatric dermatology inpatient consultations in a pediatric teaching hospital

Although skin diseases are associated with low rate of hospitalization, dermatological manifestations are frequent in hospitalized patients. The aim of the study was to describe the inpatient dermatological consultations in a pediatric teaching hospital.

Recorded data from inpatient pediatric dermatology consultation requests on a total of 539 consecutive inpatients (aged 0-18 years) from January 2004 to April 2010 were analyzed for consult diagnosis, dermatological disease group, primary diagnosis, requesting department, diagnostic pattern, treatment modality and referral to another department.

Of the 539 inpatients, 310 (57.51%) were males and 229 (42.49%) were females. The most frequent requesting department was general pediatrics (37.5%) followed by oncology (15.6%) and pediatric surgery (11.1%). Most of the patients (32.1%) had been hospitalized for dermatological or related disease followed by acute lymphoblastic leukemia (4.1%), chronic renal failure (2.6%), bronchopneumonia (2.6%) and epilepsy (2.4%). Allergic skin diseases (47.1%) were the leading group of dermatoses, which were followed by infectious diseases (14.7%), and systemic diseases with cutaneous manifestations (10.2%). Atopic dermatitis (7.4%) and unclassified eczema (7.4%) were the most frequent dermatoses followed by papular urticaria (5.4%). Most of the patients (80.0%) had diagnosis on clinical basis, whereas skin biopsy was performed in 15.9% and laboratory investigation in 4.1% of the patients. Local treatment was applied to 50.8% of the patients, systemic treatment to 5.8%, local and systemic treatment together to 31.0% while no treatment was given to 11.1%. Only 1.9% of the patients were referred to another department.

This study provided important data on the spectrum of skin disorders and their management in pediatric inpatients from the consultation perspective in a pediatric teaching hospital with multispecialty clinics.