Jack A. Cummins , Guohai Zhou , Vinod E. Nambudiri
{"title":"Natural Language Processing for Large-Scale Analysis of Eczema and Psoriasis Social Media Comments","authors":"Jack A. Cummins , Guohai Zhou , Vinod E. Nambudiri","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100210","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100210","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Social media tools are widely used by dermatologic patients. Eczema and psoriasis, two of the most common inflammatory skin diseases, are well-represented on the social media site Reddit. We used natural language processing tools to examine comments in subreddits r/psoriasis and r/eczema (combined user base >187,000), tracking commenters’ interest levels and sentiments related to common treatments for psoriasis and eczema as well as discussions of adverse drug reactions. All comments from 2014–2020 from the subreddits r/eczema (n = 196,571) and r/psoriasis (n = 123,144) were retrieved and processed using natural language processing tools. Comment volume in r/eczema related to antibacterial therapies, lifestyle changes, and prednisone decreased from 2014–2020, whereas phototherapy comments remained stable, and dupilumab comment volume increased. Comment volume in r/psoriasis for newer therapeutics (including biologics and apremilast) increased after Food and Drug Administration approval, whereas older therapies such as etanercept, adalimumab, and methotrexate decreased over time. Sentiment scores tended to decrease in the years after Food and Drug Administration approval. Among psoriasis treatments, calcipotriene and branded calcipotriene/betamethasone foam had the highest sentiment, whereas apremilast had the lowest overall sentiment score. These analyses also identified changes in patient interest levels and sentiment related to eczema and psoriasis treatments, suggesting an area for additional research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/a3/fb/main.PMC10410170.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9969057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Courtney Linkous , Angel D. Pagan , Chelsea Shope , Laura Andrews , Alan Snyder , Tong Ye , Manuel Valdebran
{"title":"Applications of Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging Technology in Dermatology","authors":"Courtney Linkous , Angel D. Pagan , Chelsea Shope , Laura Andrews , Alan Snyder , Tong Ye , Manuel Valdebran","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100187","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100187","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Laser speckle contrast imaging or laser speckle imaging (LSI) is a noninvasive imaging technology that can detect areas of dynamic perfusion or vascular flow. Thus, LSI has shown increasing diagnostic utility in various pathologies and has been employed for intraoperative, postoperative, and long-term monitoring in many medical specialties. Recently, LSI has gained traction in clinical dermatology because it can be effective in the assessment of pathologies that are associated with increased perfusion and hypervascularity compared with that of normal tissue. To date, LSI has been found to be highly accurate in monitoring skin graft reperfusion, determining the severity of burns, evaluating neurosurgical revascularization, assessing persistent perfusion in capillary malformations after laser therapy, and differentiating malignant and benign skin lesions. LSI affords the advantage of noninvasively assessing lesions before more invasive methods of diagnosis, such as tissue biopsy, while remaining inexpensive and exhibiting no adverse events to date. However, potential obstacles to its clinical use include tissue movement artifact, primarily qualitative data, and unclear impact on clinical practice given the lack of superiority data compared with the current standard-of-care diagnostic methods. In this review, we discuss the clinical applications of LSI in dermatology for use in the diagnosis and monitoring of vascular, neoplastic, and inflammatory skin conditions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100187"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/08/b5/main.PMC10410171.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9969060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rahman Attar , Guillem Hurault , Zihao Wang , Ricardo Mokhtari , Kevin Pan , Bayanne Olabi , Eleanor Earp , Lloyd Steele , Hywel C. Williams , Reiko J. Tanaka
{"title":"Reliable Detection of Eczema Areas for Fully Automated Assessment of Eczema Severity from Digital Camera Images","authors":"Rahman Attar , Guillem Hurault , Zihao Wang , Ricardo Mokhtari , Kevin Pan , Bayanne Olabi , Eleanor Earp , Lloyd Steele , Hywel C. Williams , Reiko J. Tanaka","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100213","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100213","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Assessing the severity of eczema in clinical research requires face-to-face skin examination by trained staff. Such approaches are resource-intensive for participants and staff, challenging during pandemics, and prone to inter- and intra-observer variation. Computer vision algorithms have been proposed to automate the assessment of eczema severity using digital camera images. However, they often require human intervention to detect eczema lesions and cannot automatically assess eczema severity from real-world images in an end-to-end pipeline. We developed a model to detect eczema lesions from images using data augmentation and pixel-level segmentation of eczema lesions on 1,345 images provided by dermatologists. We evaluated the quality of the obtained segmentation compared with that of the clinicians, the robustness to varying imaging conditions encountered in real-life images, such as lighting, focus, and blur, and the performance of downstream severity prediction when using the detected eczema lesions. The quality and robustness of eczema lesion detection increased by approximately 25% and 40%, respectively, compared with that of our previous eczema detection model. The performance of the downstream severity prediction remained unchanged. Use of skin segmentation as an alternative to eczema segmentation that requires specialist labeling showed the performance on par with when eczema segmentation is used.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/cd/9d/main.PMC10504536.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10339572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Maxim A.X. Tollenaere , Christina Mølck , Ian Henderson , Scott Pollack , Philip Addis , Helle Heibroch Petersen , Hanne Norsgaard
{"title":"Tralokinumab Effectively Disrupts the IL-13/IL-13Rα1/IL-4Rα Signaling Complex but Not the IL-13/IL-13Rα2 Complex","authors":"Maxim A.X. Tollenaere , Christina Mølck , Ian Henderson , Scott Pollack , Philip Addis , Helle Heibroch Petersen , Hanne Norsgaard","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100214","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100214","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Tralokinumab, a fully human mAb specifically targeting the IL-13 cytokine, has demonstrated clinical efficacy and safety in patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis. Tralokinumab binds IL-13 with high affinity, which prevents the interaction of IL-13 with IL-13Rα1 and subsequent signaling. Similarly, tralokinumab-bound IL-13 cannot bind to IL-13Rα2, a proposed decoy receptor that is reported to bind IL-13 with extraordinarily high affinity. It has however not been fully elucidated to what extent tralokinumab interferes with the endogenous regulation of IL-13 through IL-13Rα2. In this mechanistic study, we used biophysical, biochemical, and cellular assays to investigate the effect of tralokinumab on the interaction between IL-13 and IL-13Rα1 and IL-13Rα2, respectively, as well as the effects on IL-13Rα2–mediated IL-13 internalization. We demonstrate that IL-13Rα2 binds IL-13 with exceptionally high affinity and that tralokinumab is unable to displace IL-13 from IL-13Rα2. In contrast to this, tralokinumab is able to disrupt the IL-13/IL-13Rα1 and IL-13Rα1/IL-13/IL-4Rα complex. Furthermore, we demonstrate that whereas the IL-13/tralokinumab complex is unable to bind IL-13Rα2, any IL-13 that is not bound by tralokinumab (i.e., free IL-13) can be bound by IL-13Rα2 and subsequently internalized, regardless of the presence of tralokinumab. In summary, our study indicates that tralokinumab does not interfere with endogenous IL-13Rα2–mediated regulation of free IL-13.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100214"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/7e/2d/main.PMC10405097.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10319550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jonathan Avery , Sa Rang Kim , Wei Cheng , Francine Foss , Michael Girardi
{"title":"FISH Panel for Leukemic Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma: Extended Patient Cohort Correlation with Blood Involvement and Clinical Outcomes","authors":"Jonathan Avery , Sa Rang Kim , Wei Cheng , Francine Foss , Michael Girardi","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100212","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100212","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The genomic basis of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma has been characterized by gene copy number alterations and genomic sequencing, but there are few clinical tests that are being widely used to inform the diagnosis and prognosis of leukemic cutaneous T-cell lymphoma that may arise as a progression from mycosis fungoides or de novo as Sézary syndrome. An 11-gene FISH panel of <em>TP53</em>, <em>RB1</em>, <em>DNMT3A</em>, <em>FAS</em>, <em>ZEB1</em>, <em>ARID1A</em>, <em>ATM</em>, and <em>CDKN2A</em> deletions and <em>MYC</em>, <em>signal transducer and activator of transcription gene</em> (<em>STAT</em>)<em>3/5B</em>, and <em>CARD11</em> amplifications was previously found to encapsulate >95% of gene copy number variations in leukemic cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Through a retrospective analysis of patients with leukemic cutaneous T-cell lymphoma seen at the Yale Cancer Center from 2014 to 2020, we gathered the relevant genes as they became available and correlated them to factors with prognostic relevance as a proof of concept to show the potential utility in further developing a limited gene panel for prognosis. In this study, we show that the abnormal FISH results show an association with clinically relevant factors (blood stage, CD4:8 ratio, and percentage blood involvement) and have a nonsignificant statistical trend (>90%) toward correlation with overall survival. In addition, the previous cost-effective panels were <em>signal transducer and activator of transcription</em> (<em>STAT</em>)<em>3/5B</em>, <em>MYC</em>, <em>TP53</em>, and <em>ARID1A</em>. We now suggest adding <em>RB1</em> and <em>ZEB1</em> on the basis of our findings.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100212"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/19/02/main.PMC10477749.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10171072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Erica Hwang , Mariam Abdelghaffar , Bridget E. Shields , William Damsky
{"title":"Molecularly Targeted Therapies for Inflammatory Cutaneous Granulomatous Disorders: A Review of the Evidence and Implications for Understanding Disease Pathogenesis","authors":"Erica Hwang , Mariam Abdelghaffar , Bridget E. Shields , William Damsky","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100220","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100220","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Inflammatory cutaneous granulomatous diseases, including granuloma annulare, cutaneous sarcoidosis, and necrobiosis lipoidica, are distinct diseases unified by the hallmark of macrophage accumulation and activation in the skin. There are currently no Food and Drug Administration–approved therapies for these conditions except prednisone and repository corticotropin injection for pulmonary sarcoidosis. Treatment of these diseases has generally been guided by low-quality evidence and may involve broadly immunomodulatory medications. Development of new treatments has in part been limited by an incomplete understanding of disease pathogenesis. Recently, there has been substantial progress in better understanding the molecular pathogenesis of these disorders, opening the door for therapeutic innovation. Likewise, reported outcomes of treatment with immunologically targeted therapies may offer insights into disease pathogenesis. In this systematic review, we summarize progress in deciphering the pathomechanisms of these disorders and discuss this in the context of emerging evidence on the use of molecularly targeted therapies in treatment of these diseases.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100220"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/c2/6b/main.PMC10500476.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10339571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cory Kosche , Dinesh Jaishankar , Cormac Cosgrove , Prathyaya Ramesh , Suyeon Hong , Lin Li , Rohan S. Shivde , Deven Bhuva , Bethany E. Perez White , Sabah S. Munir , Hui Zhang , Kurt Q. Lu , Jennifer N. Choi , I. Caroline Le Poole
{"title":"Skin Infiltrate Composition as a Telling Measure of Responses to Checkpoint Inhibitors","authors":"Cory Kosche , Dinesh Jaishankar , Cormac Cosgrove , Prathyaya Ramesh , Suyeon Hong , Lin Li , Rohan S. Shivde , Deven Bhuva , Bethany E. Perez White , Sabah S. Munir , Hui Zhang , Kurt Q. Lu , Jennifer N. Choi , I. Caroline Le Poole","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100190","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100190","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Checkpoint inhibitors treat a variety of tumor types with significant benefits. Unfortunately, these therapies come with diverse adverse events. Skin rash is observed early into treatment and might serve as an indicator of downstream responses to therapy. We studied the cellular composition of cutaneous eruptions and whether their contribution varies with the treatment applied. Skin samples from 18 patients with cancer and 11 controls were evaluated by mono- and multiplex imaging, quantification, and statistical analysis. T cells were the prime contributors to skin rash, with T cells and macrophages interacting and proliferating on site. Among T cell subsets examined, type 1 and 17 T cells were relatively increased among inflammatory skin infiltrates. A combination of increased cytotoxic T cell content and decreased macrophage abundance was associated with dual checkpoint inhibition over PD1 inhibition alone. Importantly, responders significantly separated from nonresponders by greater CD68<sup>+</sup> macrophage and either CD11c<sup>+</sup> antigen-presenting cell or CD4<sup>+</sup> T cell abundance in skin rash. The microenvironment promoted epidermal proliferation and thickening as well. The combination of checkpoint inhibitors used affects the development and composition of skin infiltrates, whereas the combined abundance of two cell types in cutaneous eruptions aligns with responses to checkpoint inhibitor therapy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100190"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/5e/55/main.PMC10405096.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10319548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuan O. Zhu , Scott MacDonnell , Theodore Kaplan , Chien Liu , Yasmeen Ali , Stephanie M. Rangel , Matthew F. Wipperman , Madeleine Belback , Daphne S. Sun , Ziyou Ren , Xiaolong Alan Zhou , Gabor Halasz , Lori Morton , Roopal V. Kundu
{"title":"Defining a Unique Gene Expression Profile in Mature and Developing Keloids","authors":"Yuan O. Zhu , Scott MacDonnell , Theodore Kaplan , Chien Liu , Yasmeen Ali , Stephanie M. Rangel , Matthew F. Wipperman , Madeleine Belback , Daphne S. Sun , Ziyou Ren , Xiaolong Alan Zhou , Gabor Halasz , Lori Morton , Roopal V. Kundu","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100211","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100211","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Keloids are benign, fibroproliferative dermal tumors that typically form owing to abnormal wound healing. The current standard of care is generally ineffective and does not prevent recurrence. To characterize keloid scars and better understand the mechanism of their formation, we performed transcriptomic profiling of keloid biopsies from a total of 25 subjects of diverse racial and ethnic origins, 15 of whom provided a paired nonlesional sample, a longitudinal sample, or both. The transcriptomic signature of nonlesional skin biopsies from subjects with keloids resembled that of control skin at baseline but shifted to closely match that of keloid skin after dermal trauma. Peripheral keloid skin and rebiopsied surrounding normal skin both showed upregulation of epithelial–mesenchymal transition markers, extracellular matrix organization, and collagen genes. These keloid signatures strongly overlapped those from healthy wound healing studies, usually with greater perturbations, reinforcing our understanding of keloids as dysregulated and exuberant wound healing. In addition, 219 genes uniquely regulated in keloids but not in normal injured or uninjured skin were also identified. This study provides insights into mature and developing keloid signatures that can act as a basis for further validation and target identification in the search for transformative keloid treatments.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 5","pages":"Article 100211"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/ea/bd/main.PMC10410242.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9976150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nuclear and Urinary Measurements Show the Efficacy of Sun-Protection Factor 50+ Sunscreen against DNA Photoproducts upon Real-Life Recreational Exposure","authors":"Thierry Douki , Sylvain Caillat , Daniel Bacqueville , Camille Géniès , Celine Huyghe , Hélène Duplan , Jimmy Le Digabel , Christophe Lauze , Jerome Filiol , Razvan Marinescu , Karine Bouyer , Emmanuel Questel , Gwendal Josse","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100227","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Sunscreens have been shown to protect against UVR-induced DNA damage in human skin under laboratory conditions. We presently extended these observations to real-life conditions in volunteers after their ordinary exposure habits during summer holidays. Volunteers were randomly assigned to a control group and an educated group supplied with a SPF ≥50 sunscreen and receiving instructions for use. A questionnaire was used to determine the extent of exposure. No difference in average solar UVR exposure was found between the two groups. DNA photoprotection was first assessed by, to our knowledge, a previously unreported noninvasive assay on the basis of the quantification of pyrimidine dimers released by DNA repair in urine. Damage was also quantified in the nuclear DNA extracted from the roof of suction blisters collected after recreational exposure. The urinary concentration of photoproducts was significantly higher in the control than in the educated group. The same trend was observed for the level of photoproducts in the DNA from suction blisters. The unambiguous observation of an efficient photoprotection against DNA damage afforded by sunscreen under real-life conditions provides strong support for the efficiency of the sunscreens. In addition, the results validate the use of urinary DNA photoproducts as a noninvasive assay applicable to photoprotection.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 6","pages":"Article 100227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49778292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Concepts of Designing and Implementing Pharmacoepidemiology Studies on the Safety of Systemic Treatments in Dermatology Practice","authors":"Sebastian Schneeweiss , Maria Schneeweiss","doi":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100226","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.xjidi.2023.100226","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and clinical guidelines use evidence from pharmacoepidemiology studies to inform prescribing decisions and fill evidence gaps left by randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The long-term safety and infrequent adverse reactions are not well-understood when RCTs are short and involve few patients, as is the case for most systemic immunomodulating drugs in dermatology. A better understanding of the design and implementation of pharmacoepidemiology studies will help practitioners assess the accuracy of etiologic findings and use them with confidence in clinical practice. Conducting pharmacoepidemiology studies follows a structured approach, which we discuss in this article: (i) a design layer connects the research question with the appropriate study design, and considering which hypothetical RCT one ideally would want to conduct reduces inadvertent investigator errors; (ii) a measurement layer transforms longitudinal patient-level data into variables that identify the study population, patient characteristics, treatment, and outcomes; and (iii) the analysis focuses on the causal treatment effect estimation. The review and interpretation of pharmacoepidemiology studies should consider issues beyond a typical review of RCTs, chiefly the lack of baseline randomization and the use of secondary data. Well-designed and well-conducted pharmacoepidemiologic studies complement dermatology practice with critical information on prescribing systemic medications.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":73548,"journal":{"name":"JID innovations : skin science from molecules to population health","volume":"3 6","pages":"Article 100226"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/6e/30/main.PMC10514213.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41123630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}