Serum levels of cutaneous T‐cell attracting chemokine (CTACK) as a laboratory marker of the severity of atopic dermatitis in children

There are at least 13 scoring systems for the assessment of disease severity in atopic dermatitis (AD). Each system has its problems with interobserver and intraobserver variability. Cutaneous T‐cell attracting chemokine (CTACK) is a skin‐specific chemoattractant which may correlate with AD severity and obviate the issue of observer reliability. We evaluated whether serum CTACK concentrations were associated with the severity of AD in children according to the SCORing Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) index. Thirty‐seven Chinese children with AD (23 boys, 14 girls; aged 1–11 years) and 13 controls were recruited. The median (interquartile range) overall SCORAD for AD patients was 29.7 (20.3–49.7). Serum concentrations of CTACK and two other atopy‐related chemokines, macrophage‐derived chemokine (MDC) and thymus and activation‐regulated chemokine (TARC), were measured by sandwich enzyme immunoassay. There were significant correlations between SCORAD (r = 0.394, P = 0.016), its area (r = 0.528, P = 0.001) and intensity components (r = 0.429, P = 0.008) with serum levels of CTACK. The serum concentrations of inflammatory markers MDC and TARC also correlated with the CTACK concentrations (r = 0.618, P < 0.001, and r = 0.587, P = 0.001, respectively). Serum CTACK concentration appears to be a skin‐specific objective marker that correlates with various clinical and laboratory parameters of AD.

[1]  C. Lam,et al.  Serum concentration of macrophage‐derived chemokine may be a useful inflammatory marker for assessing severity of atopic dermatitis in infants and young children , 2003, Pediatric allergy and immunology : official publication of the European Society of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology.

[2]  C. Lam,et al.  Plasma TARC concentration may be a useful marker for asthmatic exacerbation in children , 2003, European Respiratory Journal.

[3]  Koichiro Nakamura,et al.  Increased serum cutaneous T cell-attracting chemokine (CCL27) levels in patients with atopic dermatitis and psoriasis vulgaris. , 2003, The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology.

[4]  G. Wong,et al.  Plasma concentration of thymus and activation-regulated chemokine is elevated in childhood asthma. , 2002, The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology.

[5]  R. Suzuki,et al.  Presence of high contents of thymus and activation-regulated chemokine in platelets and elevated plasma levels of thymus and activation-regulated chemokine and macrophage-derived chemokine in patients with atopic dermatitis. , 2002, The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology.

[6]  M. Kurosawa,et al.  TARC in allergic disease , 2002, Allergy.

[7]  James J. Campbell,et al.  CC Chemokine Receptor (CCR)4 and the CCR10 Ligand Cutaneous T Cell–attracting Chemokine (CTACK) in Lymphocyte Trafficking to Inflamed Skin , 2001, The Journal of experimental medicine.

[8]  H. Williams,et al.  Outcome measures of disease severity in atopic eczema. , 2000, Archives of dermatology.

[9]  H. Williams,et al.  The Nottingham Eczema Severity Score: preliminary refinement of the Rajka and Langeland grading , 2000, The British journal of dermatology.

[10]  N. Copeland,et al.  CTACK, a skin-associated chemokine that preferentially attracts skin-homing memory T cells. , 1999, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[11]  G. Rajka,et al.  Diagnostic Features of Atopic Dermatitis , 1980, Acta Dermato-Venereologica.

[12]  Eric J Kunkel,et al.  Chemokines and the tissue-specific migration of lymphocytes. , 2002, Immunity.

[13]  J. Ring,et al.  Clinical validation and guidelines for the SCORAD index: consensus report of the European Task Force on Atopic Dermatitis. , 1997, Dermatology.

[14]  Julia Brasch,et al.  Severity Scoring of Atopic Dermatitis: The SCORAD Index , 1993 .

[15]  A. Taïeb,et al.  Severity scoring of atopic dermatitis: the SCORAD index. Consensus Report of the European Task Force on Atopic Dermatitis. , 1993, Dermatology.