ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Validated and reliable instruments to measure disease severity are needed to substantiate the benefit of therapies for infantile hemangioma. Two purpose-made systems have been described: the Hemangioma Activity Score (HAS) and the Hemangioma Severity Scale (HSS). OBJECTIVE: We sought to compare the HAS with the HSS in terms of ease of use, accuracy, and outcome in infants treated with oral propranolol. METHODS: A prospective study of 54 infants with infantile hemangioma was conducted from October 2009 to December 2012. Propranolol was initiated at 0.5 mg/kg/d and increased to 2 mg/kg/d on day 3. The HAS and the HSS were applied independently by 2 observers. RESULTS: Intraclass correlation coefficients of the HAS and HSS between the observers was comparable but HSS scores often remained the same upon improvement of the infantile hemangioma and therefore did not reflect disease severity. HAS decreased over time, with a dramatic drop in the first week reflecting an immediate therapeutic response. LIMITATIONS: This is a single-institution study and there may have been some selection bias in the patients who were referred for treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that the HAS is preferable to the HSS in evaluating infantile hemangioma response to treatment.
Subject(s)
Hemangioma, Capillary/drug therapy , Hemangioma, Capillary/physiopathology , Neoplastic Syndromes, Hereditary/drug therapy , Neoplastic Syndromes, Hereditary/physiopathology , Propranolol/administration & dosage , Severity of Illness Index , Skin Neoplasms/drug therapy , Skin Neoplasms/physiopathology , Administration, Oral , Adrenergic beta-Antagonists/administration & dosage , Child, Preschool , Cohort Studies , Dose-Response Relationship, Drug , Drug Administration Schedule , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Infant , Male , Monitoring, Physiologic/methods , Netherlands , Observer Variation , Prospective Studies , Time Factors , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: A self-assessment rating scale (SAS) is a good tool to assess the fluctuating disease severity and quality of life (QoL) in children with atopic dermatitis (AD). The European Task Force on Atopic Dermatitis created an SAS based on the Scoring Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) index, called the Patient-Oriented SCORAD (PO-SCORAD). OBJECTIVE: The aim of our study was to measure the correlation between alternative systems such as the OBJECTIVE SCORAD, the Three-Item Severity (TIS) score and the OBJECTIVE PO-SCORAD. We also investigated the correlations between the objective severity assessments and QoL. METHODS: In a specialized outpatient clinic, an observational prospective study was performed with children ≤16 years with AD. RESULTS: Seventy-five children were included. A good and significant correlation was shown between OBJECTIVE SCORAD and OBJECTIVE PO-SCORAD: Spearman's ρ correlation (rs) = 0.63 (p < 0.001). The correlation with QoL was moderate, but still significant (rs = 0.41-0.61, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The OBJECTIVE PO-SCORAD can be used for the evaluation of fluctuating AD and correlates significantly with the OBJECTIVE SCORAD and the less time-consuming TIS score.