ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS ON PLASMA CORTISOL AND INTERLEUKIN- 4 IN ATOPIC DERMATITIS

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a skin inflammatory diseasecharacterized by chronic, itchy skin condition that is very common in children but may occur at any age. The purpose of this study was conducted to determine the relationship of psychological stress, IL-4 and cortisol in atopic dermatitis. Thirty one patients (18 males, 13 females; mean age 24.1 years, range 13–41 years), diagnosis of AD based on the criteria of Hanifin & Rajka , and 28 healthy controls (15 males, 13 females; mean age 25.2 years, range 12–43 years) with no history of atopic diseases, were enrolled in this study.The risk of developing illness due to stress was assessed by providing the questionnaire by Holmes T and RaheR (1967) as social readjustment rating scale to the subjects. Blood sampling was performed for measure IL-4 and cortisol plasma level. Statistical analysis were performed using student-t test to reported mean ± standard deviation and correlation and linear regression anlysis. The psychological stress (stress index) were significantly higherbetween the AD (156.5 + 3,4)and normal control groups (80.3 + 2.9) ). The serum IL-4 concentration was higher (5.45 + 1.28 pg/ml) in the AD group than in the normal controls(2.92 + 0.74 pg/ml) and were not significantly different serum concentration of cortisol in AD group between control group. We found a positive correlation between stress index with the severity of diseases (SCORAD index) and plasma concentration of IL-4.