“These guidelines are really intended to make pediatricians consider insect-bite hypersensitivity as a diagnosis and think twice before referring a child for a skin biopsy or another invasive procedure,” said Bernard Cohen, M.D., director of pediatric dermatology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center here.
Dr. Cohen and Raquel Hernandez, M.D., developed the guidelines and the mnemonic acronym SCRATCH, which stands for Symmetry, Cluster, Rover, Age, Target/time, Confused, Household, they reported in the July 1 and early online editions of Pediatrics.
