[Atopic neurodermatitis after childhood stage; follow-up study of 121 cases]

121 patients suffering from atopic dermatitis (AD) who had been treated in the years 1967 to 1970, being then up to the age of 10, now have been controlled by means of questionnaires. 62 of them were additionally checked by way of personal interrogation and reexamination. The checking comprised of the course of the disease as well as allergies of the respiratory system (AR). The infantile phase of AD began in 55.4 percent of the patients already during the first trimenon, in 88.3 percent in the course of the first year. The average age of manifestation was at 5.5 months. At the time of the control, 58 percent of all patients and 62 percent of the reexamined patients still suffered from AD. Only 7.4 percent were free of cutaneous atopic manifestations after the infantile period. In 31.4 percent of the cases, the diseases cleared up after the infantile phase but reappeared at the age of 5 +/- 2.5 years. 61.2 percent of the patients developed a continuous transition from the infantile to the childhood phase of AD. 54.5 percent of all patients showed the following variations of AR: 33.1 percent suffered from hay fever, 28.1 percent from bronchial asthma, and 11.6 percent from perennial rhinitis. According to statistics, bronchial asthma revealed a prevalence to alternate with AD and occurred at the average age of 4.4 +/- 3.3 years, whereas rhinitis showed itself significantly later. Treatment with hyposensitization on account of AR seldom influenced the course of AD. The prognosis of AD turned out to be worse, if the disease had begun early (within the first or second trimenon), if it occurred with firstborn or single children, or if the patients also had allergies of the respiratory system.