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April 19, 2023
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Validated IGA for atopic dermatitis strongly correlates with patient-reported outcomes

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Key takeaways:

  • Validated IGA for atopic dermatitis (vIGA-AD) positively correlated with Patient Oriented Eczema Measure in adults and pediatric patients.
  • Poorer quality of life was also correlated with greater vIGA-AD levels.

The validated IGA for atopic dermatitis tool proved to be a reliable and accurate means to assess disease severity and quality of life among adults, adolescents and pediatric patients, according to a study.

The validated IGA for atopic dermatitis (vIGA-AD) was first published in 2020 in order to create a standardized, global way to measure AD severity. It has since been revalidated through baricitinib and upadacitinib clinical studies, in addition to being used in other phase 3 studies.

Woman in a yellow short scratches her arm.
The validated IGA for atopic dermatitis tool proved to be a reliable and accurate means to assess disease severity and quality of life among adults, adolescents and pediatric patients. Image: Adobe Stock.

A study was recently published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology to assess the relationship between vIGA-AD and patient-reported outcomes.

Jonathan Bar

“Our paper shows that the vIGA-AD scale is correlated with patient-reported outcomes,” Jonathan Bar, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University in Israel, told Healio. “The vIGA-AD score performs on par with other, historically considered more sensitive, physician measurements scores such as SCORAD and EASI, which are more challenging and time-consuming to perform and interpret. Therefore, we believe vIGA-AD will be used more extensively in the future.”

The study is a cross-sectional analysis that used data from TARGET-DERM AD, a real-world study that enrolled children, adolescents and adults at various academic and allergy sites across the United States.

In the analysis, the researchers used vIGA-AD to evaluate clinical AD severity, Patient Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) to evaluate disease severity and (Children’s) Dermatology Life Quality Index (C/DLQI) to evaluate quality of life (QoL) in 1,888 patients (58% adults aged 18 years; 10% adolescents aged 13-17 years; 33% pediatric aged < 13 years).

Results showed that vIGA-AD was positively correlated with POEM (r = 0.496 for adults; r = 0.45 for pediatric patients), indicating that greater clinical AD severity is associated with disease severity. Adults and pediatric patients with moderate to severe AD were 8.19 times and 5.78 times more likely, respectively, to report greater POEM scores than those with clear or almost clear skin.

Like POEM, poorer quality of life was strongly associated with vIGA-AD (r = 0.458 for DLQI and r = 0.334 for CDLQI). Adults and pediatric patients with moderate to severe AD were 6.69 and 3.74 times more likely to be in a severe DLQI/CDLQI category than those with clear or almost clear skin.

In contrast, there was a weak to moderate statistical correlation between vIGA-AD and both POEM and C/DLQI. A polyserial correlation assessment showed that vIGA-AD was weakly correlation with CDLQI and POEM among pediatric patients (r = 0.24 and r = 0.39, respectively) and “were at best moderately correlated” in adults (r = 0.46 and r 0.5).

“We hope that dermatologists will familiarize themselves with vIGA-AD, as it is an easy tool to assess and monitor their AD patients' severity, both when performing clinical studies, but also in their everyday clinic,” Bar told Healio.