Highlights From the 2022 American Academy of Dermatology Meeting

This year’s American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annual Meeting, held March 25-29 in Boston, Massachusetts, covered a breakthrough therapy for the management of vitiligo, clinical and epidemiologic differences in certain dermatologic diseases, and the role of dietary triggers on patient outcomes.

Here are the conference highlights of AAD 2022

Ruxolitinib cream shows improved efficacy, durable safety in vitiligo after extended follow-up

Late-breaking results from 2 phase 3 studies, TRuE-V1 (NCT04052425) and TRuE-V2 (NCT04057573), showed that ruxolitinib cream (Opgelura) monotherapy was associated with clinically significant improvements in facial and total body repigmentation cream versus cream. Treatment of adolescent and adult patients with nonsegmental vitiligo for more than 52 weeks.

Following these findings, ruxolitinib cream became the first and only FDA-approved treatment for repigmentation in vitiligo patients.

Precision medicine considerations in melanoma: identifying patients and optimizing genetic, molecular testing

Genetic and molecular testing has shown potential in helping diagnose and make treatment decisions for melanoma and other cancers, but decisions about which tests to use and who will benefit should be considered among dermatologists. A panel discussion at AAD 2022 provided criteria for determining melanoma patient risk, the benefits and challenges of specific molecular tests, and the impact of comorbidity on treatment selection.

“Molecular profiling of melanomas gives us the ability to select patients who will respond to treatment, at least initially, and especially if they have Braff Biomarkers like mutations…circulating tumor DNA will play a role as we identify who is going to respond to treatment,” said Justin Cohen, DO, clinical assistant professor of medicine, hematology and medical oncology, Pennsylvania. University of Perelman School of Medicine.

Panel Review Dietary Triggers, Best Practices for the Management of Dermatologic Diseases

Another panel discussion addressed the potential mediating role of dietary triggers in understanding the symptoms of several dermatologic conditions. When counseling patients with atopic dermatitis (AD), whose disease is characterized by high morbidity, one panelist said that the topic of food and skin often comes up during appointments, which can garner passionate opinions based on potential misinformation.

“Many families and patients come in convinced that food is the cause of skin problems….however, the truth is that when we look at unselected patients, that is, those who do not have a specific food allergy, the data really suggest that simply eliminating foods is not beneficial,” says Peter A. Leo, MD, FAAD, is assistant professor of clinical dermatology and pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and director of the Northwestern University Eczema Care and Education Center.

Clinical, epidemiological differences in adult, pediatric atopic dermatitis

Jonathan Silverberg, M.D., associate professor of dermatology at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, discusses important differences in the clinical manifestations of AD in children and adults.

AD is generally considered a childhood disease, but an estimated 5.9 million US adults have moderate to severe disease. “The problem is we know so little [adolescent and adult] subset of patients clinically,” says Silverberg. “So there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge.”