Lawrence Eichenfield, MD: Comparing Ruxolitinib, Other Atopic Dermatitis Treatments

During this segment of his HCPLive interview, Lawrence Eichenfield, MD, commented on comparisons between other drugs and recent findings on ruxolitinib cream’s long-term disease control with atopic dermatitis (AD), as well as the major takeaways from the findings.

Eichenfield serves as chief of pediatric and adolescent dermatology for Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, in addition to his work as professor of dermatology and pediatrics for UC San Diego School of Medicine’s dermatology department.

“It’s very strong evidence because a similar long-term study was done with crisaborole where they did a 1-year, everyday use trial,” Eichenfield said. “That was a different design where people use the medicine every day as compared to vehicle. And it showed some benefit as compared to vehicle in time to flare. But that was showing safety with continuous use, and some efficacy as well. This has very good efficacy data, but also shows that from a practical standpoint, the amount of work patients have to do, the amount of medicine that needs to get consumed is not every day.”

Eichenfield added that, on average, it was in fact about half the time that the investigators used it, noting that there was good long term disease control. Later, he was asked about what the main takeaways should be from these findings.

“So I think that, when we first looked at the topical ruxolitinib data and the label got approved for the drug, it was pretty much with that 8-week or initial data,” Eichenfield explained. “...The punchline is that, over the 52 weeks, it was well tolerated with a safety profile that was very consistent with what we've seen in the 8 weeks. There's no evidence of worrisome issues when you're using the drug over time cumulatively. So I think that translates into clinical practice saying, ‘Okay, we have a non-steroid, previously shown in the phase 2 trials that will be a little bit stronger than triamcinolone cream,’ which is great.”

Lter, Eichenfield commented on the dermatology field in general, noting that researchers are often pushing long term disease control models for eczema, regardless of severity of disease.

“I think that the space will get more crowded,” he said. “Because we have 2 other new nonsteroidals that have completed their studies in atopic dermatitis, both roflumilast and tapinarof, which were approved for psoriasis but not yet for AD.”

For further information from this discussion with Eichenfield, view the full video above.

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