Special Considerations for Biologic Therapies in Pediatric and Adult Patients with Atopic Dermatitis

Elizabeth Lippner (00:07):

My name's Elizabeth Lippner. I'm a pediatric allergy and immunology physician. I practice out of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital here in Chicago. I see pretty much all children with an emphasis on food allergy and allergic diseases, as well as immune deficiency diseases.

(00:29):

When thinking about different biologic therapies to treat atopic dermatitis, there is a long list of things, of course, that we have to consider. And in particular when thinking about different atopic diseases that can very often co-occur with eczema or atopic dermatitis, I think thinking about the likelihood that your patient also has one of those other comorbidities is really important. And how that medication, of course, can affect that other disease control or lack of disease control.

(01:04):

So for example, some of the older biologics are approved not only for the treatment of atopic dermatitis, but also for the treatment of asthma or food allergy. And some of the topical agents for atopic dermatitis, the biologic therapies also can come with risk for potentially worsening some other health concerns.

(01:30):

So one of the key advantages, certainly both from the medical provider standpoint and from the patient standpoint, one of the advantages of biologic therapy is its inherent ability to decrease the use and the reliance on steroid medication to treat atopic dermatitis. Thankfully, in all but the most severe cases, we're not relying on systemic or oral corticosteroids to treat atopic dermatitis, but a lot of our patients are really quite reliant on topical corticosteroids. And thinking about using a biologic therapy can oftentimes lead to less reliance upon that topical corticosteroid.