Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to DermConsult on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll learn about the latest evidence in chronic hand eczema with Dr. Christopher Bunick. He’s an Associate Professor of Dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. Let’s hear from Dr. Bunick now.
Dr. Bunick:
The conversation around chronic hand eczema has vastly changed over the last two to three years in dermatology and hopefully beyond dermatology where it was rarely talked about, but now it's one of the most talked about diseases in all of skincare. And I think that is important because these patients have a high burden on their quality of life.
There is an abundance of evidence emerging in chronic hand eczema. First, we have epidemiology studies out of countries like Denmark and slowly emerging out of the United States confirming the amount of the population that has chronic hand eczema—about 10 to 15 percent in some places.
And now we have clinical trials with specific agents dedicated to chronic hand eczema. This would be the delgocitinib clinical trials. We have the pivotal phase three DELTA 1 and DELTA 2 trials, long-term extension trials like DELTA 3, and even two other trials. In the DELTA TEEN trial, delgocitinib was highly effective in treating the skin, pain, and itch in teenage patients with chronic hand eczema. And then there was the head-to-head trial of delgocitinib versus alitretinoin, known as DELTA FORCE. We don't hear too often of a topical outperforming an oral therapy for the same indication. And in this case, delgocitinib did beat oral alitretinoin.
And this is actually an abundance of clinical trial data showing that this particular topical JAK inhibitor is effective in targeting the multiple Th1, Th2, Th22, and Th17 immune pathways that are all involved in the different subtypes of chronic hand eczema. And actually, in the clinical trials, some of the most important data is that this particular therapy was effective across all the subtypes, including the difficult-to-treat hyperkeratotic chronic hand eczema.
And then lastly, what we do have in terms of emerging data are newer guidelines and consensus statements coming out of the United States. We've really lagged behind Europe here in the United States by about four to five years, but now we're starting to get some more guidelines and really help for clinicians on how to do the clinical decision-making and shared decision-making with patients when it comes to chronic hand eczema.
Announcer:
That was Dr. Christopher Bunick talking about emerging evidence in chronic hand eczema. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit DermConsult on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!
