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The risk of COVID-19 infection in patients with atopic dermatitis - a retrospective cohort study - PubMed
Source : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34626733/
1 Dermatology Research and Education Foundation, Irvine, CA, USA. Electronic address: [email protected]. 2 School of Medicine, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA. 3 Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. 4 Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA, USA.
• Source: Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology
• Conclusion/Relevance: “In this large populations-based study, we found a small increased risk of contracting COVID-19 associated with AD [atopic dermatitis] in adults. However, adult AD subjects had a higher prevalence of baseline comorbidities, previously identified as COVID-19 risk factors, compared to adults without AD. Our results were attenuated after adjusting for baseline comorbidities, suggesting that residual confounding may explain the remaining association. Studies are needed to identify which demographic characteristics/comorbidities are the strongest COVID-19 risk factors for adults with AD.”
• In the current observational study, 39,417 participants were in the AD cohort, and 397,293 subjects were in the non-AD cohorts.
• The investigators found that COVID-19 was positively associated with zip codes in California and New York, despite COVID-19 comorbidities.
• “Dupilumab was associated with lower risk of contracting COVID-19 infection compared to other systemic medications. Interestingly, IL-4 activity (blocked by dupilumab) has been associated with severe COVID-19 infections. Based on the current evidence, dupilumab does not appear to increase COVID-19 risk for patients with AD,” wrote the authors.
• Limitations of the current study included the inability to account for treatment duration and the inability to determine causal relationships. Furthermore, the researchers established disease burden via diagnostic codes, which could have resulted in the omission of participants who never received COVID-19 laboratory testing. A prospective study could address this last limitation.