The dry and itchy skin in people with eczema makes it common sense to use a moisturiser. However, it wasn’t known if moisturisers really are beneficial and whether one moisturiser might be preferable to another. A recently published Cochrane systematic review on this subject showed that they do work.
EFA-member VMCE (Dutch Association of People with Atopic Dermatitis) co-authored this review. Bernd Arents of the VMCE on the main findings: “We reviewed 77 studies with 6603 participants in total. The conclusions are that most moisturisers reduced the severity of the eczema and the number of flares, and prolonged the time to flare. Furthermore, use of moisturisers reduced the needed amount of topical corticosteroids to reach similar improvements in eczema.
However, the review did not find reliable evidence that any moisturiser is convincingly better than any other. Therefore, decisions about the use and choice of moisturiser should also be based on experiences and preferences of the person with eczema.”
The plain language summary and the abstract are available on the Cochrane website.
Over the next weeks, also podcasts on the main findings will be available in various languages.