Key clinical point: Initiation of daily application of a specialized emollient from the first to the eighth week of life reduced the risk for atopic dermatitis (AD) incidence for 12 months in infants with high risk for AD.
Major finding: At 12 months, the cumulative incidence of AD was significantly lower in the emollient vs standard routine skin care group (32.8% vs 46.4%; relative risk 0.707; P = .036). The rate of patient-reported skin infections was similar between both the treatment groups during the 8-week intervention period (5.0% vs 5.7%).
Study details: Findings are from the STOP AD trial including 321 newborn infants at high risk for AD who were randomly assigned to receive twice-daily emollient for the first 8 weeks of life or standard routine skin care.
Disclosures: This study was supported by The City of Dublin Skin and Cancer Hospital Charity and the Skin Research Institute of Singapore. Some authors declared being managing directors, employees, shareholders, or consultants or receiving research funding, speaker fees, or consulting fees from several sources.
Source: Ní Chaoimh C, Lad D, et al. Early initiation of short-term emollient use for the prevention of atopic dermatitis in high risk infants - the STOP AD randomised controlled trial. Allergy. 2022 (Aug 23). Doi: 10.1111/all.15491