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INTRODUCTION: Patient eczema severity time (PEST) is a new atopic dermatitis (AD) scoring system based on patients' own perception of their disease. Conventional scales such as SCORing of atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) reflect the clinician's observations during the clinic visit. Instead, the PEST score captures eczema severity, relapse and recovery as experienced by the patient or caregiver on a daily basis, promoting patient engagement, compliance with treatment and improved outcomes. This study aims to determine the correlation between carer-assessed PEST and clinician-assessed SCORAD in paediatric AD patients after 12 weeks of treatment using a ceramide-dominant therapeutic moisturizer. METHODS: Prospective, open-label, observational, multi-centre study in which children with AD aged 6 months to 6 years were treated with a ceramide dominant therapeutic moisturizer twice daily for 12 weeks; 58 children with mild-to-moderate AD were included. Correlation between the 7-day averaged PEST and SCORAD scores for assessment of AD severity was measured within a general linear model. PEST and SCORAD were compared in week 4 and week 12. RESULTS: At week 12, a moderate correlation was found between the SCORAD and PEST scores (r = 0.51). The mean change in SCORAD and PEST scores from baseline to week 12 was -11.46 [95% confidence interval (CI) -14.99 to -7.92, p < 0.0001] and -1.33 (95% CI -0.71 to -0.10, p < 0.0001) respectively. PEST demonstrated greater responsiveness to change (33.3% of scale) compared to SCORAD (13.8% of scale). CONCLUSION: The PEST score correlates well with the SCORAD score and may have improved sensitivity when detecting changes in the severity of AD. The ceramide-dominant therapeutic moisturizer used was safe and effective in the management of AD in young children. FUNDING: Hyphens Pharma Pte Ltd. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov identifier, NCT02073591.
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Case 1 A 60-year-old Chinese man presented to the dermatology clinic with an asymptomatic, 0.5 × 0.5-cm erythematous papule on the penile shaft for a 2-year duration (Figure 1a). His medical problems consisted only of well-controlled hypothyroidism and hypertension. The initial clinical diagnoses considered were pyogenic granuloma or condyloma accuminatum. The excisional biopsy revealed a polypoidal lesion entirely covered by epidermis, with a proliferation of cuboidal, basaloid cells, consistent with an eccrine poroma (Figure 1b). Case 2 A 28-year-old Chinese man presented with an asymptomatic fusiform, 1.4 × 0.4-cm nodule over the ventral aspect of the prepuce, for a 10-year duration (Figure 2a). His medical history was otherwise unremarkable. Lymphangioma was the initial clinical diagnosis but biopsy results revealed large collapsed cystic spaces within the superficial dermis lined by a double layer of epithelial cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm, without evidence of decapitation secretion, consistent with an eccrine hidrocystoma (Figure 2b).