Assessment of IL-31 levels and disease severity in children with atopic dermatitis.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Atopic dermatitis is a chronic, relapsing, highly pruritic, inflammatory skin disease characterized by typical localization with increasing prevalence of 10-20% in children. Pruritus is one of the major diagnostic criteria of atopic dermatitis and also the main complaint altering quality-of-life of affected patients, inducing and aggravating inflammation. Although pruritus is the absolute symptom of AD, the etiology has not been fully explained yet and current antihistamine therapies are ineffective. The aim of the study was to assess the correlation between IL-31 level and disease severity in patients with atopic dermatitis through Severity SCORing of Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) index and the degree of itching assessed subjectively.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred thirty-five children were enrolled in the study in total, 70 children with diagnosis of atopic dermatitis and 65 healthy children in control group. Data on demographic features (age, gender, family history of atopy) and laboratory values of serum eosinophil, total IgE, IgM, IgA, IgG levels and skin prick test results were collected through patient files. The disease severity was assessed by SCORAD index. IL-31 levels were measured with human IL-31 ELISA kit.

RESULTS: The statistical analysis showed that IL-31 level was significantly higher in AD patients than in the control group (AD vs CG, p 0.0001). There was no significant difference in IL-31 levels between the three subgroups divided according to the SCORAD severity score (p:0.27).

CONCLUSION: IL-31 levels were significantly higher in AD patients compared to control group but irrelevant to the disease severity.