Ethnic and Atopic Dermatitis: What Have We Learned in Asian Population?

Abstract

Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, with relapsing remitting course. Management of AD is challenging due to the complexities of this disease. Two hypotheses concerning the mechanism of AD have been proposed. One holds that the primary defect resides in an immunologic disturbance that causes Ig E-mediated sensitization, with epithelial barrier dysfunction regarded as a consequence of the local inflammation. The others propose that an intrinsic defect in the epithelial cells leads to the barrier dysfunction; the immunologic aspects is considered to be an epiphenomenon. Many studies support that AD is a complex trait which has interactions between genes and environmental factors contributing to disease manifestation, but the result of replicate association between genetic markers and AD is inconsistence. An important factor contributing to this inconsistency is related to population diversity. It is possible that certain genetic markers might contribute to increase the risk in certain ethnic population but not in others