Elaine Siegfried, MD: Takeaways from Presentation on Atopic Dermatitis in Infancy

Elaine Siegfried, MD, presented at the Revolutionizing Atopic Dermatitis (RAD) 2023 Annual Meeting in Washington. In this interview segment with HCPLive, she further discussed the points she hopes dermatologists gleaned regarding infants with atopic dermatitis (AD).

Siegfried is known for her work as a Professor of Pediatrics and Dermatology at Saint Louis University’s School of Medicine.

In this segment of her HCPLive interview, she described the ways in which she hopes physicians who attended her presentation will look at things differently.

“One that I really didn't touch upon in a lot of detail because I wasn't talking about therapeutics.” she said. “When you're treating very young infants, everybody has to realize that young infants have a much larger body surface area to weight ratio.”

What this means, she explained, is that topical treatments have a risk of percutaneous absorption which will be higher in that population.

“So as just a one takeaway message, you want to monitor the amount of topical medication that you're using,” she said. “That's especially true with topical corticosteroids because they cause skin barrier defects really, (and) you can get more percutaneous absorption, the longer that you use it.”

Siegfried also discussed the future of AD research in general, especially with regard to infants.

“I do think that the FDA has been very supportive of studying new treatments for atopic dermatitis in children,” she stated. “But typically the youngest that any company besides Regeneron has gone is H2, and there's not really a lot that's going on in the pipeline for younger children.”

Siegfried also noted that she does not believe there will be much investment in this age group but that she hopes there will be and urges researchers to do so.

For further information on the contents of her conference presentation, view the interview segment above.