Atopic dermatitis

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic (long-lasting) disease that affects the skin. It is not contagious; it cannot be passed from one person to another. The word dermatitis means inflammation of the skin. Atopic refers to a group of diseases where there is often an inherited tendency to develop other allergic conditions, such as asthma and hay fever.

In atopic dermatitis, the skin becomes extremely itchy. Scratching leads to redness, swelling, cracking, weeping, clear fluid, and finally, crusting and scaling. In most cases, there are periods of time when the disease is worse (flares) followed by periods when the skin improves or clears up entirely (remissions).

Atopic dermatitis is often referred to as eczema, which is a general term for the several types of inflammation of the skin. Atopic dermatitis is the most common of the many types of eczema. Several have very similar symptoms.
Incidence and Prevalence of Atopic Dermatitis

Diagnosis
At present there is no definitive test that will absolutely confirm a diagnosis of atopic dermatitis. Because this is the case, veterinary surgeons may suspect atopy after examining a patient, but have to make sure that other causes of itch are not present. Once these have been ruled out, skin testing can be used a s a pointer to the allergies involved.