Harmonizing measurement of eczema control

mapping scores between the Atopic Dermatitis Control Tool and the Recap of Atopic Eczema instrument

Gillespie, Jordan Data curation; Investigation; Methodology; Writing - original draft
Bash, Gina N Data curation; Investigation; Writing - review & editing
Jacobson, Michael E Conceptualization; Methodology; Project administration; Writing - review & editing
Latour, Emile Formal analysis; Writing - review & editing
Simpson, Eric L Conceptualization; Methodology; Project administration; Supervision; Writing - review & editing

Oregon Health & Science University, School of Medicine, Portland, OR, USA
Oregon Health & Science University, Department of Dermatology, Portland, OR, USA
Oregon Health & Science University, Department of Dermatology, Portland, OR, USA
Biostatistics Shared Resource, Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA
Oregon Health & Science University, Department of Dermatology, Portland, OR, USA

Correspondence: Jordan Gillespie. Email: [email protected]

Conflicts of interest: E.L.S. helped to create and validate the ADCT and is also an executive member of HOME. He is also a consultant and investigator for Sanofi/Regeneron. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Received October 09, 2024

Received in revised form March 20, 2025

Accepted April 25, 2025

Revised June 16, 2025

This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/pages/standard-publication-reuse-rights)

British Journal of Dermatology 193(3):p 451-457, September 2025. | DOI: 10.1093/bjd/ljaf167

Lay Summary

Atopic dermatitis (or eczema) is a chronic skin condition that causes itching, inflammation, redness and irritation. It is one of the most common skin disorders and occurs in people of all ages and ethnicities. To help categorize how bad someone’s eczema is in research trials, the Harmonising Outcome Measures for Eczema (HOME) group created a set of surveys to measure different aspects of the condition. These include doctor-reported skin signs, patient-reported symptoms, eczema control and quality of the patient’s life. Within the category of eczema control, two patient surveys are used to show how well someone’s eczema is controlled. These two surveys, the Atopic Dermatitis Control Tool (ADCT) and the Recap of Atopic Eczema (RECAP), are also given to patients during dermatologist visits outside of research.

As there is no way to calculate an ADCT score from a RECAP score, and vice versa, a team of researchers at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR, USA aimed to solve this problem. To do this, we recruited 50 patients in our dermatology department and gave them the ADCT and the RECAP, along with the other surveys in the HOME survey set. We used different forms of statistical techniques that aim to find a linear relationship and describe the correlation between two variables, to make two equations. These equations took a RECAP score and used it to calculate an ADCT score and vice versa.

In conclusion, our research findings allow for the comparison of two scores in research studies and in clinical visits.