Inadequate response and treatment patterns in adults diagnosed with atopic dermatitis and treated with topical therapy

Treatment for atopic dermatitis (AD) is complex, particularly in patients with inadequate response to topical therapies. Currently, there is little clinical guidance for the treatment of these patients. A real-world retrospective study utilizing electronic medical records (EMR) and administrative claims data selected patients with AD between January 01 2016 and June 30 2018. Patients had a written prescription for a topical therapy (first observed script = index date) and no prior systemic treatment. Disease severity at index, follow-up treatment response and prescriptions patterns were assessed. A subset of patients linked to claims was evaluated for treatment patterns. We identified 137,214 adult topical-treated AD patients with no prior systemic therapy. Among the 16,035 patients with available Physician Global Assessment (PGA) at index, 8169 (50.9%) had the moderate-to-severe disease. Among these patients, 60% had an inadequate response to topical therapy. Of 4475 patients linked to claims, 13.0% had claims for systemic therapy during follow-up, most initiated systemic steroids (95.2%), and oral immunosuppressants and biologics were initiated in 3.3% and 3.8%, respectively. In this real-world study, inadequate response to topical therapy among moderate-to-severe AD patients was high and initiation of systemic treatment was low which suggests a need for additional AD-indicated systemic treatment options in this patient population.