Atopic eczema in adulthood and mortality: UK population-based cohort study, 1998-2016

Atopic eczema affects up to 10% of adults and is becoming more common globally. Few studies have assessed whether atopic eczema increases the risk of death.

We aimed to determine whether adults with atopic eczema were at increased risk of death overall and by specific causes and to assess whether the risk varied by atopic eczema severity and activity.

The study was a population-based matched cohort study using UK primary care electronic health care records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink with linked hospitalization data from Hospital Episode Statistics and mortality data from the Office for National Statistics from 1998 to 2016.

A total of 526,736 patients with atopic eczema were matched to 2,567,872 individuals without atopic eczema. The median age at entry was 41.8 years, and the median follow-up time was 4.5 years. There was limited evidence of increased hazard for all-cause mortality in those with atopic eczema (hazard ratio = 1.04; 99% CI = 1.03-1.06), but there were somewhat stronger associations (8%-14% increased hazard) for deaths due to infectious, digestive, and genitourinary causes. Differences on the absolute scale were modest owing to low overall mortality rates. Mortality risk increased markedly with eczema severity and activity. For example, patients with severe atopic eczema had a 62% increased hazard (hazard ratio = 1.62; 99% CI = 1.54-1.71) for mortality compared with those without eczema, with the strongest associations for infectious, respiratory, and genitourinary causes.

The increased hazards for all-cause and cause-specific mortality were largely restricted to those with the most severe or predominantly active atopic eczema. Understanding the reasons for these increased hazards for mortality is an urgent priority.