Systemic treatment of severe atopic eczema in children

Abstract

Atopic eczema (AE) is a chronic inflammatory disease very common in children. In most cases, clinical control is achieved with adequate hydration (emollients) and topical treatment (topical corticosteroids, topical calcineurin inhibitors) but there is a subgroup of patients with severe AE unresponsive to treatment or who experience relapse after reduction of anti-inflammatory topical treatment. When there is no clinical improvement despite a good compliance and an adequate treatment plan, immunomodulators and other systemic agents could be considered. This paper aim is to review the information available in the literature on systemic treatment of severe AE in children.