From the Imperial College School of Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, London. LLERGIC rhinitis, asthma, and atopic eczema are among the commonest causes of chronic ill health. These diseases are increasing in prevalence, and they add considerably to the burden of health care costs. In Sweden, for example, the number of children with allergic rhinitis, asthma, or eczema roughly double...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate a multistrain, high-dose probiotic in the prevention of eczema. DESIGN A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group trial. SETTINGS Antenatal clinics, research clinic, children at home. PATIENTS Pregnant women and their infants. INTERVENTIONS Women from 36 weeks gestation and their infants to age 6 months received daily either the probiotic (Lacto...

The sensation of itch - defined as unpleasant sensation inducing the urge to scratch - is processed by a network of different brain regions contributing to the encoding of sensory, emotional, attention-dependent, cognitive-evaluative and motivational patterns. Patients with atopic eczema show different activation patterns and kinetics compared to healthy volunteers. This review summarizes curre...

BACKGROUND Psychological and educational interventions have been used as an adjunct to conventional therapy for children with atopic eczema to enhance the effectiveness of topical therapy. There have been no relevant systematic reviews applicable to children. OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness of psychological and educational interventions in changing outcomes for children with atopic ecz...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate both atopic and non-atopic comorbid symptoms and diseases in children with physician-diagnosed atopic disorders (atopic eczema, asthma and allergic rhinitis). METHODS All children aged 0-18 years listed in a nationwide primary care database (the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research-Primary Care Database) with routinely collected healthca...

The atopic syndrome consists of a number of diseases affecting different organs, e.g. allergic asthma, allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis and atopic eczema. A person may have one or more of these diseases that may also vary with time, depending partly on exposure to triggers. The atopic phenotype has a strong hereditary component. About 40% of children are born with this hereditary trai...