Conclusions
The existing literature suggests that selected skin interventions, such as tri-lipid emollient use from birth in high-risk infants and proactive treatment of AD in early life might reduce the risk of AD and FA. There remains, however, several gaps that could be addressed in future studies. The window of opportunity in early infancy for skin treatment for AD and FA prevention appears to be narrow, as AD onset is typically in the first 2 months of life. Future research could focus on answering specific gaps which include the type of emollient or anti-inflammatory medication to be used as prophylactic or proactive AD therapy respectively; duration of skin treatment; frequency of applications; specific body sites, lesional vs non-lesional skin and total body surface area to be treated; how to identify high-risk infants at birth; and the utility of combination therapies or non-steroid-based immunomodulators for pro-active AD treatment. Deeper endophenotyping to identify biomarkers for high-risk infants who would benefit from these interventions would further enhance the efficacy of targeted interventions.