James Q. Del Rosso, DO: Atopic Dermatitis Therapies, Outlook on Current Research

During this Q&A interview with HCPLive, James Q. Del Rosso, DO, discussed the major takeaways from his Fall Clinical Dermatology 2023 Conference for PAs & NPs presentations and his outlook on current research.

Del Rosso works both as a dermatologist and as the research director of JDR Dermatology Research in Las Vegas, Nevada.

HCPLive: In your presentation ‘Topical Management of Atopic Dermatitis and Psoriasis: Clinical Insights for Dermatology PAs and NPs,’ what were some of the biggest takeaways?

Del Rosso: We go over some core information about some of these newer therapies, primarily, it's going to be topical ruxolitinib, topical roflumilast, and topical tapinarof, not necessarily in order of preference, but those are the those are the different therapies. We go over the highlights of the data, but also look at some cases and really talk about where we think some of these therapies fit in, what they bring to the table, how they might help individual patients and maybe some things you need to look out for.

HCPLive: What were some of the biggest distinctions between the version of your presentation you gave at this conference for PAs/NPs and the prior version?

Del Rosso: To be honest with you, there's not that much difference. I mean dermatologists went through a residency and they should have a more in depth, background knowledge. But you know, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, they get right into it. And there's going to be variation amongst dermatologists and how much effort they put in on their own, or how much time and how much they know in different areas is going to be the same with physician assistants and nurse practitioners. So if they're hitting the books, they're out there listening at meetings, they're asking questions, and they become extremely astute on a lot of the information.

HCPLive: Would you say that you are feeling generally positive about the progress that's being made in the dermatology field right now? Are there any areas of research that you believe need greater attention?

Del Rosso: Well, there's always going to be areas where we would like some conditions to have a treatment, or we'd like something more, but we are in an extremely robust age. And that's not an exaggeration, when I look back to 5 years ago compared to where we are now. With psoriasis, we've had biologics coming along, but the biologics we have now are much better than the ones we had in the beginning. They have better efficacy. In many areas, they have better safety. And we're getting patients from being in a situation where they were miserable and very hard to get them reasonably clear to now completely clear or almost completely clear and taking care of their psoriatic arthritis…

Now, we have therapies coming along for hidradenitis suppurativa, alopecia areata, and we have some new ones coming to diseases that a few years ago, you walked in the room and you felt helpless and we had very little to offer…We're working on things like lichen planus, we have advances with vitiligo, we're truly offering people something that's going to make a difference. And a lot of these people have had it for a long time, they've heard the promises. So they may not be willing to come in because they don't believe there's going to be anything that helps them. We have to get the message out there.

For further information on this interview, view the conference page here. The quotes contained in this interview were edited for clarity.