Journal List > Allergy Asthma Respir Dis > v.5(2) > 1059299

Kang, Lee, Kim, and Yum: The measurement of serum corticosteroid level in atopic dermatitis patients associated with application of topical corticosteroids

Abstract

Purpose

Most of the atopic dermatitis (AD) patients and their parents refuse topical treatment because of concern about generalized side effect due to systemic absorption of topical corticosteroids. Therefore, a large number of studies reported difficulty in properly controlling in AD. However, investigations of the percutaneous absorption of topical corticosteroids are still insufficient.

Methods

One hundred nine patients who visited our atopy clinic and diagnosed as AD by a physician from January 2005 to January 2012 were enrolled. We examined serum corticosteroid (clobetasol propionate, hydrocortisone) level by liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with a tandem mass spectrometric (MS/MS) method.

Results

We developed the LC-MS/MS method to determine corticosteroids (clobetasol propionate, hydrocortisone) in sera of AD patients. Also, we confirmed precision, accuracy, limit of detection, limit of quantification, absolute recovery, and relative recovery of the experimental methods. We could not detect clobetasol propionate or hydrocortisone in sera of 109 AD patients using the newly developed LC-MS/MS method.

Conclusion

Regardless of age, the severity and illness duration of AD, clobetasol and hydrocortisone were not detected in sera. Although there are many other factors of determining systemic absorption of topical medications, our results showed that topical corticosteroids applied for several years in AD patients may be under the limit of detection in their sera by the LC-MS/MS method.

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Fig. 1.
Calibration of analytical clobetasol propionate (A), hydrocortisone (B).
aard-5-79f1.tif
Table 1.
Baseline characteristics of the study population (n=109)
Characteristic No. (%)
Age (yr)  
 0–1 12 (11.0)
 2–5 18 (16.5)
 6–10 19 (17.4)
 11–21 24 (22.0)
 ≥22 36 (33.0)
SCORAD index  
 Mild (≤15) 15 (13.8)
 Moderate (16–40) 59 (54.1)
 Severe (≥41) 35 (32.1)

SCORAD, SCORing Atopic Dermatitis.

Table 2.
Inter-, Intraday precision, accuracy of analytical method
Method Concentration (μg/mL) Precision (CV, %)
Accuracy (bias%)
Intraday Interday
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
Clobetasol propionate 0.125 7.282 4.334 9.918 9.239 -0.312
  0.8 6.823 7.281 6.253 5.737 0.136
  8 11.472 7.295 8.189 7.180 0.014
Hydrocortisone 0.125 13.735 10.102 26.342 31.642 0.241
  0.8 6.985 7.583 12.336 24.587 -0.062
  8 16.679 10.862 13.345 29.663 -0.033

CV, coefficient of variation.

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