Bacteriology of atopic dermatitls

Abstract

The aerobic bacterial flora of dermatitic skin. uninvolved skin, and the anterior nares of subjects with atopic eczema was investigated. A general comparison of the bacterial flora of subjects with atopic eczema, psoriasis and from a normal population was made. The incidence of Staphylococcus aureus in atopics was: 93%, 76% and 79% in the lesions, non-involved skin and the anterior nares respectively. For psoriatics the incidence was: 20% on the plaqucs, 13% on the uninvolved skin and 30% in the anterior nares.1 The occurrence of S. aureus was very low on the skin of normal population (< 10%), S. aureus was the predominant organism in the lesion of atopics and coagulase?negative staphylococci were the major bacteria in the psoriatic plaques and on the skin or the normal population. Fifty eight percent of the S. aureus strains isolated from atopics belonged to group 3 and 38% were nontypable. S. aureus strains belonging to phage groups 2 and 4 were not detected.