Introduction
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is one of the most common chronic inflammatory skin diseases characterized by recurrent pruritic eczematous lesions.1 AD has long been recognized as a disease in children, with high prevalence rates up to 25%.2Recently, increasing evidence has suggested that AD also presents in adults, with prevalence rates estimated at approximately 2.1% to 4.9% worldwide and that both persistent child- and adult-onset forms have been observed.3-5
The latest epidemiological studies have shown that the prevalence of AD in industrialized countries has increased since early 2000’s.3,6-9 This increase prevalence inflicts a significant disease burden on patients and healthcare systems. Specifically, the prevalence of AD in China, a country with more than 1.4 billion people, is showing an increasing trend across different age groups over the past three decades.10-13 Nevertheless, few studies have reported the current state, clinical features, and treatment of AD in China. A majority of previous studies have focused on paediatric AD, with a limited number of reports focusing on adults. Despite the differences in clinical manifestations and demographic characteristics between children and adults, a thorough analysis of patients with AD across all age groups is lacking.6,14,15 Therefore, there is a heightened interest in the comprehensive identification of real-world data on clinical characteristics, aggravating factors, and comorbidities of AD in patients from different age groups across China. This study is based on data extracted from national registry of the China Type II Inflammatory Skin Disease Clinical Research and Standardized Diagnosis and Treatment Project. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first national study with a large sample size on the disease severity, risk factors, and comorbidity in patients with AD in China. We can utilize these data to better guide clinicians in designing treatment plans while actively monitoring changes and trends in clinical characteristics and patient management of AD. In the future, this study could serve as a baseline for large-scale control studies.