Influence of measles vaccination on the progression of atopic dermatitis in infants

Abstract

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, affecting 10-20% of children. Measles vaccination has been reported to have contradictory effects on incidence of AD in children. Therefore, we performed the first prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to analyze the evolution of AD in infants after measles vaccination. The study included 12 infants (10-14 months old) with AD, randomly assigned to two groups: while the first group received a single dose of a standard measles vaccine ROUVAX, the second was treated with placebo (vehicle). Infants were followed-up for 6 months after administration of ROUVAX/placebo for the clinical signs associated with AD, by determination of SCORAD index. In addition, serum was taken before vaccination and 1 month later to determine the presence of seroconversion and to analyze the progression of serum levels of CCL18 (PARC) and E-selectin, known to be distinct serum markers that reflect clinical features of AD. In the vaccinated group, five of six children seroconverted 1 month after treatment and one infant showed a 50% improvement of SCORAD. Serum levels of CCL18 were significantly decreased in two treated infants (of four analyzed for this group) and E-selectin slightly decreased in one infant (of three analyzed by this test). In placebo-treated group the SCORAD improved in one patient and serum levels of CCL18 and E-selectin did not change. These data suggest that measles vaccination not only does not aggravate AD, but may also improve some of the immunological parameters of this allergic disease. Inclusion of a higher number of patients in a similar study should give a more comprehensive overview of the benefit of measles vaccination on the clinical evolution of AD patients, and potentially open new avenues to the clinical application of the anti-inflammatory effect of measles virus proteins.

Identification of unique proteomic signatures in allergic and non‐allergic skin disease

“…PARC is a dendritic cell‐derived chemokine up‐regulated in AD that mediates skin homing of human memory T cells . Furthermore, significant decrease of PARC was observed in AD after immunotherapy . Increased gene expression of PARC was reported in PS, although to a lesser extent than AD .…”

The immunomodulatory effects of measles‐mumps‐rubella vaccination on persistence of heterologous vaccine responses

“…More recent studies have also shown a beneficial effect of MCV on childhood survival, the effect being greater when MCV are given before the age of 12 months . The immunomodulatory effects of MCV have also been used in the treatment of atopic dermatitis, for which the vaccine (given subcutaneously) has been reported to decrease serum immunological markers . In addition, in the treatment of cutaneous warts, it been hypothesized that the injection of MCV into lesions accelerated the destruction of the papilloma virus and infected host cells …”

In this issue

“…There are ever more publications on immunizations and atopy risk. Our latest paper falls into line with the ground swell of opinion that there is no impact, in this case focused on MMR (11,12). The sequence of immunizations normally separates live attenuated vaccines from others.…”