Addressing Itch in Prurigo Nodularis Clinical Trials

Raja Sivamani, MD, MS (00:07):

I'm Raja Sivamani. I'm a Board Certified Dermatologist. I'm actually an integrative dermatologist because I have training in Ayurvedic medicine as well. And I practice in Sacramento, California. We have a private practice there. We see a lot of Medi-Cal patients as well. So I really am interested in treating the underserved. And as such, I also do a lot of clinical research. So I get to play in both worlds of clinical care and clinical research.

(00:33):

One of the challenges with clinical research is how do we address the heterogeneity in how PN presents? You're going to have a wide diverse set of populations, whether it's going to be men versus women. And now the big thing is, how do you deal with people that have darker skin tones, skin of color? Because PN isn't just going to be about the itch there, it's going to also center around, what about the long-term effects with hypo or hyperpigmentation? What about the long-term effects of scarring?

(01:02):

So as we look at maybe more mild or early diagnostic prurigo nodularis versus maybe a later diagnostic scenario where you're seeing them when they've already got a lot of scarring, we're going to have to find ways to address that much better. So that we have clinical trials that can look at what does happen with the color shifts on the skin? And how do we modulate the scarring that's there too, beyond just treating the itch? So I'm pretty excited. There's a lot of research that's available and I'm very excited for the patients. I'm excited for us as a community. But there's a lot of work to do and we're excited to get to it.