Adelaide A. Hebert, MD: What’s New in Pediatric Dermatology?

In this interview on HCPLive, Adelaide A. Hebert spoke about the most important points of her presentation ‘What’s New in Pediatric Dermatology,’ given at the Fall Clinical Dermatology 2023 Conference for PAs & NPs.

Hebert is known for her work as both professor and Chief of Pediatric Dermatology of the McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, as well as Children’s Memorial Hermann.

“The wonderful thing about the last 12 to 24 months is we have had a resurgence and development of new medicines which we've really never had before,” she said. “We're now able to treat some true unmet needs within dermatology, particularly within pediatric dermatology. And in my more than 40 years in dermatology, I've never seen so many new medicines come to the marketplace, as we have had in the past 12 to 24 months.”

Hebert added that in her view, the present time may be the best time to be a dermatologist, given these advancements.

“I think as science has advanced, we've learned to use more targeted therapy,” she explained. “In addition, because dermatology is such a small specialty, we've learned to look broadly at drugs used by other disciplines and other colleagues. And we've been able to repurpose, if you will, or use these medications in arenas that are germane to dermatology.”

Hebert noted that this stems from the fact that researchers are able to look at the biologic pathways, understand them, and then use medicines accordingly that will favorably impact these pathways.

“One of the really exciting arenas that I've been working on, with the vascular anomalies team here at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, is the use of some new medicines to treat what are called PIK3CA vascular malformations.”

These, she points out, are overgrowth syndromes which impact children unfavorably, leading to considerable pain and deformity.

“And the medicine we use is alpelisib,” she added. “This is a medicine that's been used in breast cancer patients, both female and male patients with breast cancer in the adult realm. And again, looking at the biologic pathway, it was determined that alpelisib could be hugely impactful in overgrowth and as a result, we really are able to have these children not only reduce their pain, but actually reduce the overgrowth, not always completely, but at least partially, which helps them tremendously in life.”

For further information on Hebert’s presentation, view the full interview segment above.

The quotes contained in this article are edited for clarity.