Ichthyosis Scoring System powerful tool to measure global ichthyosis severity: JAMA

USA: In a new study conducted by Qisi Sun and team, it was found that the Ichthyosis Scoring System (ISS) is a trustworthy technique for measuring global ichthyosis severity in adults and children. The findings of this study were published in the Journal of American Medical Association - Dermatology.

A comprehensive, user-friendly approach for assessing worldwide ichthyosis disease burden is critical for enhancing ichthyosis care, selecting potential participants for clinical trials, and measuring treatment effects. There is presently no approved scale to systematically and objectively quantify the severity of ichthyosis over the entire body. As a result, the goal of this study was to develop and test a comprehensive and user-friendly tool for measuring total body ichthyosis severity in adults and children.

Ichthyosis professionals took involved in the content creation of the Ichthyosis Scoring System in this qualitative study. The body was split into eleven locations, and Likert scales (0-4) were developed with thorough descriptions and photographic standards to assess scale and erythema. Photographs of participants with ichthyosis were used to create an 83-image teaching set.

To assess interrater and intrarater reliabilities, two groups of dermatologists independently rated all test images twice. Participants were recruited from referral centers and patient advocacy groups all across the world. Participants of diverse ages, races, and ethnicities were involved in the development of the ISS, while dermatologists with varying levels of experience and skill served as raters to evaluate the ISS. The research was carried out from 2019 to 2021, and the data were examined in 2021.

The findings of this study were as follow:

1. The intraclass correlation coefficients for total, scale, and erythema scores were more than 0.90, 0.91, and 0.88, respectively, across both cohorts of 11 dermatologists.

2. Interrater reliabilities for scale and erythema were moderate to good for most body areas. The intrarater reliabilities ranged from fair to outstanding.

It is imperative to have a global scale to assess the severity of Ichthyosis, and this scoring system can certainly help much in customizing the treatment without hustle.

Reference:

Sun Q, Asch S, Bayart C, et al. Development and Initial Validation of a Novel System to Assess Ichthyosis Severity. JAMA Dermatol. Published online February 16, 2022. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2021.5917

Keywords: Ichthyosis, erythema, scoring system, dermatology, fish-scale skin, severity scale, skin problem, ichthyosis vulgaris, JAMA, Ichthyosis Scoring System