Video
Future Directions for Atopic Dermatitis Management
Author(s):
Raj J. Chovatiya, MD, PhD; Alexandra K. Golant, MD; Eric Simpson, MD, MCR; and Linda Stein Gold, MD, share clinical pearls and discuss the future treatment landscape for atopic dermatitis.
Linda Stein Gold, MD: I agree with you and that tells them you're now on their side, which is wonderful. We have this future of research, and is there something that you're most looking forward to in terms of clinical research, or something in the pipeline, or something that we need, or you'd like to see? Raj, is there anything in the future that you're kind of excited about?
Raj J. Chovatiya, MD, PhD: Yeah. One of those holy grails of any inflammatory disease, and atopic dermatitis in particular because of how heterogeneous it is, is how can we take someone that comes to us on a first visit within a few minutes of just talking with them, understanding their disease, to figure out what is that best treatment choice for them going to be for what is their burden? When you have so few targeted treatment options, the answer is kind of easy because you go with the 1 or 2 that you have, but as we're going to see, this explosion over the course of the next decade with phase 1, 2, 3, and launch is actually happening, I'm excited about how we're going to combine that amazing clinical genotyping data that has sort of been a pioneer over the past decade or 2 along with some of the cool work that's being done in trying to figure out good biomarkers when it comes to everything from gene expression to protein expression to serology, and putting that together in a package where I can tell my patient, “this is going to be the treatment that I know is going to get you to this point of clearance better than anything else out there.”
Linda Stein Gold, MD: Wouldn't that be wonderful. Alexandra, any thoughts on something that you're looking forward to?
Alexandra K. Golant, MD: Yeah, the concept of being able to easily and predictably personalize how we pick treatments in any inflammatory skin disease does feel like the holy grail. Overall, with the approach to the patient with atopic dermatitis, I look forward to seeing that continue to change because these patients have been undertreated for quite a long time. While that has changed over the last, let's say 5 years or so, we still have work to do capturing the more moderate patient and getting people that sometimes were lost to follow up back into the office and getting them clearer. I look forward to seeing that change and look forward to new therapeutics. There are exciting areas or therapies on the systemic side that may indeed be disease-modifying or modify the disease at the course somehow or lead to longer periods of patients being disease-free.
Linda Stein Gold, MD: That is exciting. Eric, what are you most excited about?
Eric Simpson, MD, MCR: Yeah, I'm going to go with the International Eczema Council who said that this ability of treatments is to change the natural course of comorbidity. My research career has been dedicated to primary prevention trying to prevent eczema in general, but this secondary prevention idea is something I'm really interested in. And we've all seen it, both topical and systemic, especially in our pediatric cohort that if we can control the disease for long enough and keep the disease state quiet, that may change the natural course and patients may not need treatment later on. There are some very recent studies, especially in Japan, that show how dermatologists can make a difference in that even in their allergic comorbidity. There's some data from Japan in that aggressive treatment in patients who get that proactive approach early in their AD career that they can prevent food allergy at 2 years of age. At the interfaces of when a patient comes in, we could do something that will change the course of their life, and prevent the need for medication and prevent comorbidities in the future. I'm interested in that from a topical approach and a systemic approach.
Linda Stein Gold, MD: We have a lot of exciting, hot topics that we're looking forward to on the horizon. I'd like to thank my colleagues for joining us and I'd like to thank all of you for this very informative discussion. Thank you for watching this HCP Live Peer Exchange. If you enjoyed the content, please subscribe to our e-newsletters to receive upcoming peer exchanges and other great content right in your inbox. Thanks so much.
Transcript Edited for Clarity
