An audit of childhood eczema

During a period of 3 years, 1493 children with different types of eczema were diagnosed at Children Hospital, Lahore. In general, boys were predominantly affected in all types of eczema. Majority of the patients belonged to 1-5 yr. age group, 26.6% were infants below 1 yr. and 26.2% fell in 5-15 yr. group. The analysis revealed seborrheic dermatitis to be the most common type of eczema seen in 26.2% of patients. Other variants included pityriasis alba (17.5%), xerotic eczema (14.6%), atopic dermatitis (13.3%), infective eczema (13.3%), contact dermatitis (8.2%), and flexural eczema (4.4%). Rare types encountered were lichen simplex chronicus (1%), disseminated eczema (0.9%), nummular eczema (0.4%) and pompholyx (0.2%).