Serum Zinc Levels in Patients with Atopic Dermatitis

Park, Hae Young; Huh, Ik Soo; Lee, Dong Youn; Yang, Jun Mo

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Zinc is one of the most widely studied metals in childhood diseases and dermatological conditions, and low serum zinc levels have been reported in children with atopic dermatitis (AD). As a recent experiment has shown that a zinc deficient diet results in AD-like eruptions in mice, there is a positive relationship between AD and decreased zinc level.
OBJECTIVE
The purposes of this study were to investigate the prevalence of zinc deficiency in patients with AD and to compare the levels with those in non-AD patients. We also compared the prevalence of zinc deficiency in each patient with AD who had acute and chronic lesions. Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between low serum zinc levels and skin Staphylococcus aureus colonization rate.
METHODS
We collected blood samples to check serum zinc level and performed skin swabs for bacterial cultures from 388 patients with AD and 234 control patients with urticaria who visited Samsung Medical Center, Department of Dermatology from February 2010 to November 2010.
RESULTS
Approximately 52% of the patients with AD had low serum zinc levels. In patients older than 20 years old, the prevalence of zinc deficiency was 42.5% in patients with AD and 52.6% in patients with urticaria (p=0.084). The percentages of patients with a low serum zinc level were 42.9% and 42.4% respectively in patients with AD and acute lesions and in patients with AD and chronic lesions. However, we found no significant significance in the skin S. aureus colonization rates between the low serum zinc level group and the normal serum zinc level group.
CONCLUSION
It was confirmed that >50% of patients with AD had low serum zinc levels. However, no significant differences in serum zinc levels were found between the AD and urticaria groups >20 years old or between the acute skin lesion and chronic skin lesion groups. Furthermore, serum zinc level did not affect S. aureus colonization in the skin in patients with AD or non-AD patients.