Indian journal of skin allergy-milestones achieved and future perspectives

As we complete 3 years of publishing this journal focused on the niche area of skin allergy, I reflect on what we have achieved in 2024. One of the principal aims of a scientific publication is to bridge the gap between the researcher and the clinician and thereby facilitate evidence-based management and improve the patient care. What is very satisfying and the best feedback of the journal performance is the usage statistics of this free access journal that has witnessed significant growth; including an increase of total downloads from 5,38,759 in April 2024 to 10,07,237 in January 2025 (an increase of 46.5%) and of PDF downloads from 4,72,372 to 8,24,488 (an increase of 42.7%) in the same period of 9 months.^[1,2]

Indian Journal of Skin Allergy has tried to discuss eczemas beyond atopic dermatitis, including contact dermatitis. Issue 1 of 2024 included a narrative review on pigmented contact dermatitis and a symposium on photodermatoses with Professor Sathish Pai as the guest editor.^[3] This included updated reviews by experts on photobiology, phototoxicity and photoallergy, polymorphous light eruptions, chronic actinic dermatitis, and investigations and treatment of photodermatoses.^[4-8] This widely viewed symposium provided a convenient synopsis of the management of this challenging spectrum of dermatoses, available as free access reviews by experts in the field.

To highlight the diverse presentations of allergy, in both the issues of 2024, we included reviews on cutaneous adverse reactions in children by experts from Romania and Germany and on comorbidities in atopic dermatitis by experts from Turkey and the current status of stem cell therapy in dermatology from India.^[9-11] Further, the Indian Journal of Skin Allergy provides a platform to publish original research from Indian and international authors, therefore providing an opportunity for integrating and sharing the experience of researchers working in the field of allergy across the globe to get a holistic perspective and generate more research questions and generate interest in focused research in the field of cutaneous allergies.^[10,12]

With the global use of medicines growing by 14% over the past 5 years since 2019 and an estimated increase in annual use to 3.8 trillion daily doses by 2028,^[13] the need of the hour is identifying drugs with a higher safety margin and the least possible adverse effects; however, while discussing the drug-induced side effects, surprisingly cutaneous adverse effects are often missed and are under-reported leading to lack of awareness and missing the causality of easily visible cutaneous reactions. The Indian Journal of Skin Allergy provides a platform for documenting and bringing the spotlight on possible drug-induced cutaneous adverse effects. Significantly, the 2024 journal issues have included eight articles discussing cutaneous adverse reactions, including papulosquamous eruption to programmed cell death protein 1 inhibitor, pembrolizumab; hair depigmentation attributable to a multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor, pazopanib, and symmetrical drug-related intertriginous and flexural exanthema to the commonly used drug paracetamol.^[14-16] These reports hope to sensitize the clinician, enabling early detection of rare adverse effects to common drugs as well as to specialized drugs and facilitating timely management of a possible adverse reaction in the clinical setting.

While the Indian Journal of Skin Allergy has provided a platform to share scientific contributions in atopic dermatitis, contact dermatitis, and cutaneous adverse effects from across the globe, there is still a long road ahead. The spectrum of allergy is vast and we hope to receive more diverse content and encourage more clinicians to submit their observations, interesting cases, therapeutic vignettes, and original research to the journal. At the Indian Journal of Skin Allergy, we again request that you send in your manuscripts related to the field of skin allergy. Hope you enjoy reading the first issue of 2025, which again includes succinct reviews, interesting case reports, and original research, and we would welcome your feedback at editor@skinallergyjournal.com.