Shawn Kwatra, MD: Biggest Unmet Needs of Prurigo Nodularis

During his recent interview with HCPLive, Shawn Kwatra, MD, gave a preview of his upcoming presentation on prurigo nodularis (PN) from the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) 2023 Annual Meeting in New Orleans this week.

Kwatra is known for his work as an Associate Professor of Dermatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also the Director for the Johns Hopkins Itch Center, and specializes in medical dermatology.

Kwatra gave a description of some of the biggest unmet needs for patients with PN.

“So there are so many unmet needs in prurigo nodularis,” he said. “If you look at all skin diseases, overall, prurigo nodularis, time after time, tends to have the greatest severity of itch. If you look at disease, comorbidities and associated conditions, it tends to have the highest even higher than psoriasis and atopic dermatitis, which we talk about a lot.”

He added that PN patients have been essentially abandoned, without available therapeutics or proper disease awareness.

“There's a translational revolution going on in dermatology,” he explained. “This started several years ago and psoriasis transitioned to atopic dermatitis. And now it's finally hitting prurigo nodularis.”

Kwatra noted that one of the issues has been that pharmaceutical development of new agents has exceeded our understanding of the underlying disease pathophysiology.

“So it's my honor to chair the first dedicated session ever, at the American Academy of Dermatology, a meeting solely dedicated to prurigo nodularis. And this is going to be a how-to session. We're going to talk about the what, when, where, why, and how of prurigo nodularis and it's going to be an incredible session.”

For more information on Kwatra’s pre-presentation interview with HCPLive, view the segment posted above.