Atopic dermatitis or eczema (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease. It is more common in childhood with an incidence of 10% to 20% in children and 1% to 3% in adults.
Over last years, several studies have targeted a possible association between the atopic state and other diseases. Many papers published before 1985 tend to conclude a decreased risk of cancer. A previous study, based on observation of 1842 cases, also confirmed that a history of eczema had an important protective action among children against acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Focusing on AD as a clinically defined disease, a recent study reviewed all this evidence in intention to find a possible relationship between atopic dermatitis and cancer. The research team identified a total of 23 publications in which atopic dermatitis (or eczema) was studied as risk factor for skin, pancreatic, hematological and brain malignancies.
The conclusions of this study support the hypothesis that people with a background of atopic dermatitis or eczema have a lower risk to develop cancer. This is possible because AD might have protective action against cancer due of previous treatments that enhanced the immune system and made it able to detect and destroy malignant mutant cells.
Future researches are necessary to evaluate how long the effects of treatments for AD are effective for preventing cancer. |
