VIDEO: Alopecia areata ‘still a challenging disease’ despite available treatments

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

So, now with this FDA approval of baricitinib, I think the biggest challenge is actually helping patients understand the potential risks of a drug like this. It suppresses the immune system. A similar drug has been associated with blood clots, including stroke and heart attacks, in the patients over the age of 50. So, helping patients understand it's not necessarily for everybody. Prior to the approval, and also probably now, still, insurance coverage of effective medications is probably still gonna be a challenge. Although so far, it has not been as big of a challenge as it has in the past. And the approval is really only for adults. So there's a big gap for children and adolescents as well. Finally, one of the biggest challenges with alopecia areata is just that it can be challenging to treat. There are still gonna be people that don't respond to these treatments. And the disease itself is actually very unpredictable. So even if you do respond to treatment, once you stop the treatment, a lot of times there's a rebound effect. So it's still a challenging disease.