The use of oral probiotics in the treatment of atopic dermatitis

Abstract

Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is a chronic disease that generates scaly lesions on the skin, generates itching, erythema and affects 20% of children and about 5% of adults. Currently AD is considered a systemic disorder associated with the development of other comorbidities, whose pathophysiology is not completely understood, but there is a strong correlation with the dysfunction of the skin physical barrier and immunobiological dysregulation. The present study aims to analyze the effectiveness of the use of probiotics administered orally for the adjuvant treatment of patients with AD, evaluating their effectiveness, which are the most used, the correlation with the intestinal microbiota and the immune system, if there is greater effectiveness according to the age group and which strains and dosages are most indicated. The study used a prospective literature review, academic material in Portuguese and English, in the PubMed, Scielo and LILACS databases from 2017-2022 for works on the topic of probiotic use in AD. The literature review showed that although the first-choice treatment for AD is corticosteroids, probiotics as an adjuvant can reduce the need for corticosteroids. The most used strains are Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus fermentum, but the doses vary greatly between authors and commercial presentations, ranging from 5-10x109CFU for the first microorganism and 1-2x109CFU for the second. The higher incidence of efficacy of its in children and controversial conclusions on dosage was due to several factors, such as environmental, diet, which is indicative of the need for future studies to establish dose and identify proven clinical efficacy.