Birth Month And Prevalence Of Atopic Dermatitis In Children Under 3 Years In Antananarivo, Madagascar

Abstract BACKGROUND: Several studies have been done to evaluate the relationship between month of birth and atopic diseases but the results are contradictory. So, we aim to evaluate the correlation between the month of birth and the prevalence of AD in Malagasy children less than 3 years.METHODS: A case-control study was conducted based on patients’ data of the department of Dermatology in the University Hospital Joseph Raseta Befelatanana (UH/JRB) Antananarivo. It included 354 children less than 3 years seen in this department between January 2010 and December 2018. For each AD patient, two age and sex-matched controls without a history of AD were selected from the same period.RESULTS: This study included 118 AD cases and 236 non-AD controls. Our case-control study found that there are no statistically significant correlation between birth month and risk of AD in Malagasy children < 3 years. However, the fewest children with AD were born in February (17.86%, OR: 0.40, CI 95%: 0.11-1.14), and the most were born in August (45.16%, OR: 1,73; CI 95%: 0,75-3,88). Asthma, allergic rhinitis and allergic conjunctivitis were significantly correlated with AD in our patients.CONCLUSION: Our case-control study found that there are no statistically significant correlation between birth month and risk of AD in children < 3 years. However, the high frequency of AD in children born in August (dry season) compared to non-AD controls was not negligible (p-value =0,05 and X 2 3,27).