The diagnostic criteria of Hanifin and Rajka are quite useful.
As criteria for assessing the severity of AD were lacking, SCORAD was proposed to standardize clinical evaluation of atopic patients.
Items were proposed for evaluation on the basis of slide images produced by members of the group. Statistical analysis of results led to the publication of SCORAD [Dermatology 1993; 186: 23-31].
Clinical reproducibility was tested in adults and children at hamburg, Bordeaux, and Rotterdam.

To provide a composite score, the system must be :

• Precise and sensitive
• Reproducible from one observer to another, and from one day to the next
• Simple of use

The European Task Froce on Atopic Dermatitis was created on the initiative of Jean-François Stalder and Alain Taïeb during a meeting of the European Society of Pediatric Dermatology at Bordeaux in September 1990.
Various meetings held since then (Albi, Paris, Athens, New-York, Bournemouth, Hamburg, Bordeaux, Oslo, Rotterdam, etc.) have led to the SCORAD system as well as the determination of its reproducibility in populations of adult and child atopic patients.

The score is determined on the basis of several criteria concerning lesion spread and intensity as well as subjective signs.
Each item relating to the score was subjected to statistical techniques of data amplification using results obtained from the grading of 88 patients by 10 investigators.

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