Clinical Features:

• Often begins in infancy or early childhood, with a female predominance
• Associated with asthma and allergic disorders
• Presents with pruritus, erythema, scaling, excoriation, lichenification and superimposed lichen simplex chronicus
• In young children, most often affects the face and extensor surfaces of the extremities
• In older children and adults, flexural surfaces and neck are most commonly involved.

Histologic Features:

• Mild to moderate subacute to chronic spongiotic dermatitis
• Eosinophils and Langerhans cell clusters are absent, in contrast to allergic contact dermatitis.
• Follicular involvement is common.
• Due to the intense pruritus, the lesions are often rubbed or scratched, and secondary lichen simplex chronicus develops.

Cases associated with this book:

Atopic dermatitis
Author: Stephen Lyle, M.D., Ph.D.

Conference: DermatopathologyConsultations.com Teaching Collection