Abstract
We present the results of a retrospective data analysis of a practice cohort of 44 patients with atopic dermatitis treated with the IL-4/13 receptor antibody dupilumab for up to 3 years. Patients were followed up over a period of 21 months during specialized consultation hours named Immunodermatology, which was established to guarantee comprehensive documentation. The patient's characteristics regarding age and sex distribution, severity and duration of disease were comparable with the patient collectives in large, pivotal studies. The therapeutic efficiency however was high (percentage of patients with EASI50, -75, -90 after 16 weeks: 94, 84, 60%, respectively) and long lasting (86% EASI90 after 52 weeks on therapy) under everyday conditions in the clinical setting. Approximately half of the patients had facial skin or eye involvement either in their history or at the start of treatment. This group of patients proved to need more and intense care because facial dermatitis and periocular dermatitis, which often involved conjunctivitis, took longer to heal, relapses occurred, and an additional topical treatment was often required. We did not observe any severe side effects during the 48 patient-years analyzed in this study. Dupilumab proved to be a safe and efficient treatment for atopic dermatitis in dermatological practice.