‘Can We Achieve Atopic Dermatitis Remission with Current Therapies?’ with Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD

In this HCPLive interview, Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD, discussed the highlights of his talk titled ‘Can we achieve remission with our current therapies?’ at the Revolutionizing Atopic Dermatitis (RAD) 2024 Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Chovatiya, known for his work as clinical associate professor of medicine for the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, highlighted the current state of remission in atopic dermatitis (AD), noting the lack of standardized definitions and the limitations of existing therapies.

“We don't have a shared language and understanding and definition of what remission is, in that you could be on-drug, off-drug, require intermittent drugs, get rid of adjunctive therapies,” Chovatiya explained. “Is it lasting for days, weeks, months, years? Is it getting completely clear of signs or symptoms, or is it getting almost clear? You can imagine that when you start adding all of these into the equation, there's a number of permutations in which we could end up with a definition.”

A shared lexicon and definition regarding what is meant by ‘remission’ is necessary, Chovatiya expressed.

“I went through our current data for our systemic therapies that we have, including lebrikizumab, which should be hopefully approved within the next several months, to understand whether any of these data or trials really answer the question about remission,” Chovatiya said. “And I think that in the case of our oral JAK inhibitors, probably not. These are fast-on and fast-off medications that require chronic use, and so they're not going to be ones that necessarily are causing a long term or lasting change.”

With current biologics, Chovatiya noted, it seems like clinicians may be able to space out dosing or discontinue for some patients and have disease that seems relatively well-controlled for a longer period of time.

“Is this really an example of a long lasting change?” Chovatiya said. “Harder to say, because we know that some of this could just very easily be mediated on the fact of the way biologics work with signals that we're targeting.”

For additional information about these subjects, view Chovatiya’s full interview posted above.

The quotes used in this summary were edited for the purposes of clarity.