Biomarkers Do Not Aid in Predicting Future Atopic Dermatitis Severity Scores and Systemic Therapy Outcome

Biomarkers do not predict the outcome of systemic immunosuppressive therapy in adult patients with atopic dermatitis (AD).

Researchers aimed to assess whether serum biomarkers can predict the outcome of systemic immunosuppressive therapy in adult AD patients by developing a statistical machine learning model. The study used the data of a previously published longitudinal study of 24 patients who received azathioprine or methotrexate for over 24 weeks. The dynamic evolution of latent disease severity and measurement errors to predict AD severity scores two-weeks ahead were described using the model. Feature selection identified biomarkers for predicting AD severity scores.

Results of the study validated the developed model in a forward chaining setting and confirmed that it performed better than standard time-series forecasting models. Adding biomarkers had no effect on predicting AD severity scores and the outcome of the therapy.

“The analysis of the data in this study did not identify any predictive biomarkers for systemic immunosuppressive therapy for AD, and validation on different cohorts of patients is still required,” concluded the study authors. “The method proposed in this study may help to re‐analyse previously collected individual longitudinal data to test the predictive ability of potential predictive biomarkers,” they added.

—Jessica Garlewicz

Reference

Hurault G, Roekevisch E, Schram ME, et al. Can serum biomarkers predict the outcome of systemic immunosuppressive therapy in adult atopic dermatitis patients? Skin Health Dis. 2022;2(1):e77. doi:10.1002/ski2.77