PUBLISHER: GlobalData | PRODUCT CODE: 1635724
PUBLISHER: GlobalData | PRODUCT CODE: 1635724
Atopic dermatitis (AD) (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision [ICD-10] code L20) is a heterogenous and chronic inflammatory skin condition that is characterized by the remission and relapse of skin lesions and pruritus. Severe AD can impact patients' daily life and cause sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression, and impaired quality of life (QoL) (Kawaguchi et al., 2024; Silverberg et al., 2018).
AD is a complex disease that presents with a range of clinical manifestations and symptoms, depending on the patient demographic and disease severity (Nutten, 2015). The pathogenesis of AD is unclear, and most likely stems from the interaction of a combination of genetic susceptibility, environmental and lifestyle risk factors, and dysfunctional cell-mediated immunity. AD severity ranges from mild to severe. In severe cases, AD is associated with sleep disturbances due to the pruritic rashes that appear on the skin during a flare-up, depression and anxiety, and loss of productively, contributing to the economic and disease burden globally (Laughter et al., 2021). According to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database, AD ranks 15th among all nonfatal diseases and has the highest disease burden among skin diseases, as measured by disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). A positive correlation has been found between a country's gross domestic product (GDP) and disease burden, and while the overall prevalence of AD has remained stable in the last decade, the age distribution of AD is a bimodal curve. The highest prevalence is seen in childhood, followed by the middle-age and older population (Laughter et al., 2021). However, prevalence variation exists depending on age, sex, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, and new epidemiological patterns are slowly emerging, such as AD prevalence increasing in low-income countries and new AD-onset in adults becoming increasingly more common, particularly in the West (Elsawi et al., 2022; Nutten, 2015).