Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD: How Do Approved Eczema Treatments Compare?

Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD, clinical associate professor of medicine at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, spoke with the HCPLive editorial team on his presentation titled ‘How do approved therapies stack up?’

Chovatiya’s talk was given at the Revolutionizing Atopic Dermatitis (RAD) 2024 Annual Meeting in Chicago. During the interview, Chovatiya spoke on several of the target therapies which have been approved for treating atopic dermatitis, referred to interchangeably as eczema.

““Now in the topical and systemic realm, I tried to touch a little bit on each of them, knowing that some of our newer therapies were going to be the ones that were of interest to the audience,” Chovatiya said. “So in the topical realm, we talked a little bit about crisaborole and topical ruxolitinib. In the oral and injectable route, we talked about abrocitinib, upadacitinib, tralokinumab, and dupilumab as well, with just a touch on lebrikizumab.”

Chovatiya noted that it is impossible to compare any of these treatments head to head, given that such data largely does not exist. Most of his rating of these therapies come from systematic reviews and network meta-analyses that allow clinicians to somewhat indirectly compare them.

“In the case of topical ruxolitinib…I really delved into the data that projected that not only is it really quite deep for a topical but very rapid,” Chovatiya said. “In some of the more recent phase 3 and phase 4 data, phase 2 data as well, suggesting that they're on the order of a minute to hours, as opposed to the often seen week that we think about with our therapies.”

After this, Chovatiya had spoken on some of the available oral therapeutic options, specifically JAK inhibitors.

“I highlight the fact that they're able to very quickly resolve itch and very deeply, in a way that we are not able to do with biologic therapy,” Chovatiya explained. “In fact, with our network meta-analyses…abrocitinib and upadacitinib tended to be our strongest therapies when it comes to itch improvement. I then finally talked on data from tralokinumab to show that, despite us thinking maybe that biologics are not a speedy option for itch, most of the drugs do start to show separation between placebo and treatment pretty early on, and a number of individuals who all are on therapy really achieve very meaningful results when it comes to itch.”

To find out more about these points of discussion, view the full interview posted above.

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