OBJECTIVES: Two studies were conducted to characterize French patients treated with dupilumab for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis (AD). MOVE was an observational, multicenter, transversal study conducted between 2019 and 2021 and included 628 patients treated with dupilumab for AD. DUPIXAM was an SNDS (exhaustive French claims database) study on patients initiating dupilumab 300mg between 2019-2020. Because dupilumab was also indicated in asthma and nasal polyps (CRSwNP), an algorithm was developed to identify patients with AD in DUPIXAM. MOVE was used to validate the DUPIXAM algorithm.

METHODS: From the 3,900 patients aged 18+ with ≥1 dupilumab 300mg delivery, AD, asthma or CRSwNP markers were first identified (pharmacy, specialist consults, inpatient diagnosis coding) in the 10 years before dupilumab. A second markers screening in the single previous year allowed to extract moderate-to-severe AD patients among patients who presented both AD and asthma or CRSwNP markers. To determine whether patients had moderate-to-severe AD or severe asthma among patients with markers of both diseases in the previous year, systemic treatment was investigated: methotrexate, mycophenolate mofetil, azathioprine and cyclosporine were defined as AD-specific and mepolizumab, benralizumab and omalizumab as asthma-specific. Among patients presenting treatments with both omalizumab and cyclosporine, the frequency of AD-specific markers was investigated last. The linkage with MOVE allowed to validate the DUPIXAM algorithm.

RESULTS: 3,216 patients were identified as moderate-to-severe AD: in the past 10 years, 846 presented markers of AD only; in the previous year, 1,399 other patients presented exclusively markers of AD, and 971 were identified through systemic treatments and frequency of AD markers. The linkage of DUPIXAM with MOVE showed a sensibility from the algorithm of 92,1%. Male patients with moderate-to-severe AD represented 52.8% of the population and were aged 45.2 ± 19.4, whereas female patients were aged 40.2 ± 17.6.

CONCLUSIONS: The algorithm developed in DUPIXAM showed a good robustness and sensibility.