Evaluation of prevalence of thyroid autoimmunity and alopecia areata in children with atopic dermatitis

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic relapsing inflammatoryskin disease that has possible associations with other diseases suchas allergic conditions, autoimmune skin diseases, and systemicdiseases. We evaluated the prevalence of alopecia areata andthyroid autoimmunity in children with atopic dermatitis. This was a cross-sectional study on 124 children(62 children with atopic dermatitis and 62 healthy children).Demographic features of the participants and duration of diseasein children with atopic dermatitis were recorded. Antithyroidperoxidase and thyroid stimulating hormone were evaluated inboth groups. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI)were calculated to estimate relative risk. The chi-squared testand analysis of variance test (ANOVA) were used to evaluatethe association of thyroid autoimmunity with the demographicand clinical features of patients. Thyroid autoimmunity was only detected in atopicdermatitis children and not in the control group, and the differencewas statistically significant [OR = 4.32, 95% CI = 2.15–10.81,P = 0.04). Furthermore, overt thyroid disease was significantlymore common in the atopic dermatitis group compared withthe control group (OR = 4.46, 95% CI = 1.15–17.24, P = 0.03). Apersonal history of alopecia areata was also significantly morecommon in the atopic dermatitis group (OR = 4.46, CI = 1.17–15.29,P = 0.030). In addition, there was no significant difference betweenthyroid autoimmunity and overt thyroid disease in the patients’severity of atopic dermatitis and demographic features (P > 0.05). Patients with atopic dermatitis had a significantlyhigher percentage of thyroid autoimmunity, overt thyroid disease,and alopecia areata than the control group.