A scalable approach to assess the safety of recently marketed systemic treatments for atopic dermatitis in clinical practice.

Abstract

Targeted systemic immune-modulating drugs (IMDs) to treat atopic dermatitis (AD) were highly efficacious in randomized trials. Trials with limited number of subjects leave questions about their safety. We describe a data and analytics structure for the production of timely, high-quality evidence on the comparative safety of recently approved IMDs in patients with AD in clinical practice. We established a series of sequential propensity score (PS)-balanced cohorts that grow in size with each annual data refresh. Nine health outcomes of interest plus conjunctivitis as a positive tracer outcome were identified. The initial treatment comparison was dupilumab, an interleukin-4/13 inhibitor, or tralokinumab, an interleukin-13 inhibitor, versus abrocitinib/upadacitinib, both JAK inhibitors. The first analysis cycle (December 2021-February 2023) compared 269 patients initiating JAK inhibitors and 2,650 initiating IL-4/IL-13 inhibitors. Patient characteristics were well balanced after PS-matching. Outpatient infections within 180 days occurred in 18% of JAK-1 inhibitor initiators versus 12% of dupilumab/ tralokinumab initiators (RR=1.50; 0.96 to 2.33) whereas acne risks were 7% vs. 3%, respectively (RR=2.29, 0.96 to 5.46). This sequential monitoring system will produce essential knowledge on the safety of IMDs to treat AD based on its growing study size of patients observed in clinical practice.