Eczema: November 2006 Archives

On Saturday, October 7, 2006, the AAP Section on Allergy and Immunology sponsored a session reviewing recent publications in the fields of asthma, eczema, and urticaria.

Asthma Diagnosis and Management

The first speaker was Dr. Paul Williams, Northwest Asthma and Allergy Center in Seattle, Washington, who was Chairman of the Section on Allergy and Immunology at AAP. He highlighted recent articles on the prevention of and care for patients with asthma. He reviewed studies covering the epidemiology of asthma, identification of severity and proper severity classification, and variation in symptom severity.^[1]

Background: Patients with hand eczema frequently have a history of atopic dermatitis or atopy. No specific morphologic pattern of hand eczema helps distinguish atopic hand eczema from other etiologies. There are few studies of hand eczema prevalence and morphology in a well-defined population of patients with atopic dermatitis.

Methods: We evaluated 777 consecutive patients with atopic dermatitis (diagnosed by standard criteria) for hand involvement. An additional 100 patients had further evaluations, including evaluation of the historical and morphologic characteristics of their hand eczema.