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"Breakthrough Drugs Boost Treatment Options For Eczema" - Erin Billups

  • NY1 News
  • New York, NY
  • (May 03, 2018)

Alexandra Ilyashov doesn’t know what triggered her eczema a year and a half ago. It came suddenly, and severely, spreading all over her body. It took months of failed topical medications before Ilyashov found leading eczema expert, Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, professor of dermatology, medicine, and clinical immunology 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, who discovered nearly a decade ago that eczema is not simply a defect in the skin’s protective outer layer. It’s an autoimmune reaction, similar to psoriasis. "It doesn't matter what starts first but it was shown that the immune activation is the one that perpetuates the disease," said Dr. Guttman-Yassky. “So you have to target the immune system.” Dr. Guttman-Yassky enrolled Ilyashov in an oral drug trial that targets a broad range of eczema-causing proteins, called Upadacitinib. Dr. Guttman-Yassky said the next treatment advance would be genetic testing of eczema patients, to fine-tune drugs to the patient's need.

- 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

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