Evaluation of a paraffin based moisturizer as compared to a ceramide based moisturizer in children with atopic dermatitis: A double blinded, two group equivalence randomised controlled trial

Atopic dermatitis is chronic relapsing inflammatory disease affecting upto 20% of childrens and 2-8 % adults. Since the main defect in atopic dermatitis is skin barrier dysfunction, use of moisturizers alone or along with topical steroid has shown improvement in disease activity in earlier studies.It is also seen that it results in improvement of duration in remission with reduction in relapse rate as well as decrease in amount of topical corticosteroid requirement. Paraffin based moisturizer are the most commonly used moisturizers, but there are only few studies using this moisturizer and they have shown improvement in disease activity. In recent years, there are many studies using ceramide based moisturizer and showing similar or marginally better improvement in disease activity. There are not many studies comparing different moisturizer though there is a huge difference in cost and patient affordability. There are some studies which has compared different types of moisturizers and found no significant difference. We plan to do this double blinded, two group equivalence randomised controlled trial in 70 children with mild to moderate atopic dermatitis to see their effect on disease activity and skin barrier function. The children will be followed up for 6 months to evaluate all the outcome parameters.