Prescribing Patterns of Dupilumab for Atopic Dermatitis in Adults: A Retrospective, Observational Cohort Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory disease caused by type 2 helper T-cell (Th2) mediated immune response to environmental antigens. Dupilumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody, improves AD via inhibition of interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to characterize prescribing patterns of dupilumab for AD in adults at a large health system. METHODS A retrospective, observational cohort study was conducted using electronic data from the University of Colorado Medical Campus and its affiliates. The outcome measured was the prevalence of dupilumab prescribed for adults with AD, between 3/28/2013-3/28/2021. We assessed whether the characteristics of patients who received dupilumab were different from those who did not. RESULTS We found a population AD prevalence of 5.6%. In our cohort, Black patients were more than twice as likely to have received dupilumab than were White patients. Patients with a diagnosis of atopic neurodermatitis were approximately twice as likely to have received dupilumab than those with other diagnostic variants of AD. CONCLUSIONS Our results demonstrate that both patient racial characteristics and specific AD diagnoses were associated with variations in dupilumab prescription patterns. CLINICALTRIAL NA