title: Content of vascular endothelial growth factor in stratum corneum well correlates to local severity of acute inflammation in patients with atopic dermatitis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Atopic dermatitis (AD) is an inflammatory skin disease, characterized by existence of both acute and chronic eczema. Various markers are used to clinically evaluate the severity of AD as a whole. However, little is known regarding markers that can efficiently indicate the severity of a localized lesion. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a potent activator of vascular permeability, is known to be increased in AD lesions. In order to establish whether the VEGF content in the stratum corneum (scVEGF) can be used as a marker to evaluate severity of AD lesions, we evaluated the association between scVEGF and symptom scores of localized lesions.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty patients with AD and 12 healthy subjects were enrolled. Skin lesions were evaluated and transepidermal water loss and skin water content of the lesions were measured. Stratum corneum samples were collected from the skin of back, neck and arm by the tape stripping technique. The scVEGF were evaluated using a VEGF-specific ELISA method after extracting protein from the scales.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The scVEGF levels were significantly higher in patients with AD than in healthy controls. Moreover, the scVEGF levels highly correlated with the manifestation scores of erythema and edema/papulation, and weakly correlated with the scores of excoriation, xerosis and itch. They also correlated significantly with transepidermal water loss and skin water content.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The scVEGF levels correlated well with the severity of clinical conditions, especially erythema and edema/papulation. scVEGF level is considered to be a useful marker to evaluate acute inflammatory conditions in individual AD lesions.
authors: Clinic for Atopic Dermatitis, Department of Dermatology, Faculty of Medicine, Shimane University, Izumo, Japan.
authors: Tseveendorj
authors: T
authors: Amarbayasgalan
authors: Hitoshi
authors: H
authors: Takahashi
authors: Itaru
authors: I
authors: Dekio
authors: Eishin
authors: E
authors: Morita
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003876:Dermatitis, Atopic / Q000150:complications / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D004487:Edema / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D004817:Epidermis / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D004890:Erythema / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / Q000378:metabolism*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A