The lack of a relationship between atopic dermatitis and nonmelanoma skin cancers

BACKGROUND: Very little has been published on whether a relationship exists between atopic dermatitis (AD) and skin cancer. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to investigate whether individuals with AD are more likely than other patients with dermatologic conditions to develop nonmelanoma skin cancer. METHODS: This was a case-control, mailed-survey study. RESULTS: Of those contacted, 69.8% (3207 of 4591) filled out the survey. Of the control patients, 18.4% (254) had a history of AD as defined by the United Kingdom Working Party diagnosis criteria and composed 13.7% (210) of the cases. The unadjusted odds ratio of AD to nonmelanoma skin cancer was 0.70 (95% confidence interval 0.57-0.85). After fully adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, and topical steroid use the odds ratio was 0.78 (0.61, 0.98). Using different definitions of AD had little effect on this result. CONCLUSIONS: It does not appear that patients with a history of AD are more likely to develop nonmelanoma skin cancers than other patients with dermatologic conditions.