Dr Melinda Gooderham: Emerging vs Traditional Therapies for Patients With Atopic Dermatitis

Offering a non-steroidal treatment option will have a huge effect on specific subgroups of patients with atopic dermatitis (AD), especially the pediatric population, says Melinda Gooderham, MD, MSc, FRCPC, dermatologist and clinical researcher at Peterborough Regional Health Centre in Ontario, Canada.

Transcript

Which subgroups of patients with AD may benefit the most from new emerging therapies?

I think the subgroup of patients who may benefit from the topicals will be patients with steroid phobia or patients who've experienced topical steroid withdrawal, or have been worried about topical steroid withdrawal whether it's happened to them or not. To have a non-steroidal option to manage their disease topically will really help that subset of patients who might be having anxiety about steroid use.

The pediatric population may also have more limited options. If these medications are approved for age 2 and up or age 6 and up, it will also help that subset of patients—who sometimes are the majority of patients—in childhood and adolescence.

What are potential advantages and disadvantages of these emerging therapies compared with existing options?

The advantages of the topicals, as I mentioned, are non-steroidal. I think more patients may be open to use them, there is not likely to be a boxed warning on these agents. So, there won't be that barrier to use with good efficacy and good tolerability—so, things that have limited other agents in the past, such as topical steroids.

For the biologic agents, the advantages are to have more options. To have another interleukin 13 inhibitor is going to help patients who either have had inefficacy or reduced efficacy, secondary loss of efficacy, or adverse events with another biologic. They will now have now another option.

For patients who are just starting, who may be "bio naive," they have more options to choose from. I think that always helps in a new mechanism of action, with nemolizumab blocking the interleukin 31 receptor for those patients where itch is a predominant feature of their disease and causing the most impact on their sleep and on their quality of life. To have that option available is a huge advantage over what is available today.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.