Emerging Insights into the Immunologic Subtypes of Atopic Dermatitis in Children

Dr. Robert Sidbury (00:14):

My name is Dr. Robert Sidbury, and I am a pediatric dermatologist at Seattle Children's Hospital and the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington.

(00:22):

What are the emerging subtypes of atopic dermatitis in terms of the immunologic side of things, and how should they influence treatment? Well, we're learning so much more about the nature of the inflammation in atopic dermatitis. Forever and a day, we've thought of it as a monolithic type of thing, and we've treated it as such. And now, some researchers like Emma Gottman in New York have been able to characterize the inflammation and make it much more personalized. That's sort of the goal for all of us heading forward, is personalized medicine. In this realm, she's been able to show that different patients, different subpopulations have different sorts of inflammatory subtypes, and that can influence treatment.

(01:01):

One example of patients who I have seen for years and have thought, gosh, there's some elements of atopic dermatitis, there's some elements of psoriasis, which we typically think of as two very distinct diseases and treat accordingly. And now knowing that, often through Dr. Gottman's work, that there are some patients with an IL-17 signature in their atopic dermatitis inflammation, and they may well be those patients who sort of have an overlap with psoriasis, that thinking about potentially some IL-17-related medications, which we typically use for psoriasis, for those patients who have had atopic dermatitis, has been an evolution in my practice based on that information.