Skin-in-Sight: a Longitudinal Cohort Infrastructure for Standardized Remote Monitoring and the Evaluation of Digital Care Innovations in Chronic Skin Diseases

Psoriasis, atopic dermatitis (eczema) and hidradenitis suppurativa are long-term skin conditions that flare and settle over time. Most of what happens to the skin happens at home, between hospital appointments. A dermatologist usually sees the skin only on the day of the visit, which may not reflect how the condition has been over the preceding months. This study sets up a long-term research collection, called a cohort, in which people with one of these three conditions take part from home. Once a month, participants use a certified digital health app on their own phone to answer a short set of questions about their symptoms and about how their skin affects daily life, and to take a standard set of photographs of their skin. Twice a year they answer a longer set of questions. Taking part takes about five minutes in most months and about twenty-five minutes twice a year. The app gives step-by-step guidance on lighting, distance and framing at the start of every photo session, so that the photographs can be compared from month to month. The photographs are reviewed by trained assessors, who score how severe the skin disease looks using the scoring systems established in dermatology research. Three assessors score each set of photographs independently, and their scores are combined according to rules that are set in advance. With the participant's permission, this information is combined with information already recorded during routine care, such as changes in treatment and hospital visits; with pharmacy records showing which medicines were dispensed; and with publicly available daily measurements of air quality, sunshine, ultraviolet radiation and pollen for the area where the participant lives. Bringing these together makes it possible to study how these conditions change over time, what happens in the period before a flare, and how treatment and the living environment relate to the course of the disease. The collected data are also intended to support the development of computer-based tools that could in future help assess skin disease from photographs. Taking part does not change the care a participant receives. The study does not provide medical advice, and the data collected are not used for diagnosis, treatment decisions or routine follow-up. Participants who experience worsening symptoms contact their treating physician as usual. The cohort is also designed so that studies of digital care tools can later be carried out within it, among participants who have agreed in advance to be approached. Each of those studies is registered separately.