ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Dermatology
Real-world efficacy and safety of dupilumab in the treatment of head and neck atopic dermatitis: a retrospective cohort study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
- 2The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Head and neck atopic dermatitis (HNAD) is a clinically common subtype of AD. While dupilumab is widely used in AD treatment, its efficacy in HNAD is debatable. Objective: To evaluate the real-world efficacy and safety of dupilumab in HNAD. Methods: A retrospective research included 29 individuals with HNAD (17 adult and 12 pediatric) who were treated with dupilumab. Primary variables such as the Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI), Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), Investigator's Global Assessment (IGA), Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM), Visual Analog Scale for Itch (VAS-Itch), and Visual Analog Scale for Sleep Quality (VAS-SQ) were evaluated at baseline, week 4, week 8, and week 16. Data on adverse events (AEs) were collected routinely. Results: At week 16, all assessments demonstrated improvement. Both groups experienced significant decreases (P < 0.05) in efficacy indicators, with the exception of children's DLQI, which showed a decreasing trend but did not achieve statistical significance. According to these findings, dupilumab significantly decreased the severity of the condition and improved overall quality of life in both adults and children. Conclusion: This real-world study revealed that dupilumab could be an effective and safe therapy among HNAD patients, for both children and adults.
Keywords: atopic dermatitis, Dupilumab, head and neck, biologics, efficacy, Safety, Quality of Life
Received: 16 Sep 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Peng, Yu and Lin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ying Lin, lin19791226@gzucm.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.