"Links Between Atopic Dermatitis And Psoriasis" - Andrew Bowser
Thinking of psoriasis and atopic dermatitis (AD) as a spectrum, rather than separate diseases, might lead to better understanding and potentially better treatments, two authors have proposed in Current Opinion in Immunology. “A case can be made that psoriasis and AD exist across a spectrum where T-cell axes can be variably present and create some overlapping disease characteristics,” said Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, The Sol & Clara professor of dermatology, clinical immunology, and medicine, vice chair of research in the department of dermatology and director of the center for excellence in eczema in the laboratory of inflammatory skin diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and James G. Krueger, MD, PhD, of Rockefeller University. When these T-cell mediated inflammatory skin diseases are studied in European-American populations, the differences between them are clear in both T-cell polarity and cytokine arrays, they noted. "We used to think that atopic dermatitis was a purely Th2 disease," Dr. Guttman-Yassky said. "We now know that it's much more complex, and instead of being a homogeneous disease, it actually has different phenotypes. While Th2 activation is common to these phenotypes, they differ in activation of Th17 and Th22 T-cell axes, which show for example significant increases in Asians with AD.” She added, “So, we need to think about it as a continuum, and for different patients subsets with different phenotypes of atopic dermatitis, we need to think that maybe some treatments from the psoriasis arena may actually qualify.”
- Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, The Sol & Clara Professor, Dermatology, Clinical Immunology, Medicine, Vice Chair, Research, Department of Dermatology, Director, The Center for Excellence in Eczema, Laboratory of Inflammatory Skin Diseases, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
