Trends in disease severity and quality of life outcome measures in pemphigus clinical trials: A scoping review

Pemphigus represents a spectrum of autoimmune‐mediated blistering diseases associated with high morbidity, mortality and reduced quality of life (QoL). Despite an increase in pemphigus clinical trials, the varied instrument measurements of disease severity and QoL outcomes make comparisons between studies challenging. This study aimed to evaluate trends in the use of disease severity and QoL outcome measurements in pemphigus clinical trials. A review of pemphigus clinical trials was conducted using the PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Reviews and ClinicalTrials.gov databases up until September 2023. Only pemphigus randomized clinical trials that assessed at least one disease severity and/or QoL outcome were included. Overall, 53 clinical trials were eligible for this review. All clinical trials evaluated a disease severity outcome, with the Pemphigus Disease Area Index being the most used validated questionnaire (28.3% of trials) and more popular after 2015 (47.8% of trials since). The autoimmune bullous skin disorder intensity score (7.6%) and visual analogue measurements (7.6%) have fallen out of favour. Most studies now include lab parameters (56.5% of trials after 2015), with anti‐desmoglein 1 and 3 antibody levels (30.2%), immunoglobulins (IgG and/or IgM and IgA) (11.3%), and anti‐drug antibody levels (7.6%) being frequently evaluated. A small portion of trials evaluated QoL (26.5% of studies), with the autoimmune bullous quality of life being the most common (15.1%), however QoL utilization as an outcome measure has been increasing since 2015 (61.1% of trials since). Standardising the use of validated outcome measurements allows for better data interpretation, comparability and clinical application of results.