Precision Medicine in Dermatology: New Diagnostic and Therapeutic Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

Precision medicine is "an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person”. This new approach toward patient care allows doctors to select targeted therapies based on an understanding of the disease through analysis of genetics, genomics, big data analytics, and population health. Precision medicine is an emerging chapter in medicine, in particular in dermatology.

Moreover, the therapeutic revolution in the management of inflammatory dermatoses is under way. The therapeutic arsenal is expanding in the field of psoriasis, including biologics (TNF blockers, anti-IL12/IL23, anti-IL17, and anti-IL23 antibodies), new small molecules (tyrosine kinase inhibitor), and a new biologic for generalized pustular psoriasis (anti-IL36 receptor). New biologics are available in the field of atopic dermatitis and alopecia areata. New targeted treatments of pruritus are also coming.

Understanding the underlying mechanisms of dermatologic disease can contribute to the development of new biomarkers for diagnosis and prognostication.

Biomarkers are of increasingly high importance in medicine, particularly in the realm of ‘personalized medicine’. They are valuable for predicting prognosis and dose selection. Moreover, they may be helpful in detecting therapeutic and adverse responses and in patient stratification based on efficacy or safety prediction. Thus, biomarkers are essential tools for the selection of appropriate patients for treatment with certain drugs and to enable personalized medicine, ‘providing the right treatment to the right patient, at the right dose at the right time’. Prognostic biomarkers are of particular significance for malignant conditions.

Similarly, diagnostic biomarkers are important in autoimmune diseases. Disease severity biomarkers are helpful tools in the treatment for inflammatory skin diseases.

Biomarkers and new non-invasive diagnosis tools can improve dermatologic diagnosis and treatment.

At the gene level, precision medicine is making its clinical mark.  For example, precision dermatology can improve physician decisions anticipating the future clinical course in infants with pediatric psoriasis or particular forms of ichthyosis.

Such advances have an immediate benefit for patients and families, extending the goal of making an accurate genetic diagnosis.

This Special Issue will analyze different aspects of new therapies in dermatology and of precision medicine in dermatology, from genetic analysis to markers of responses in different dermatologic diseases, and from new diagnostic tools in deramatology to new genetic analyses of deramtologic cancers.

Dr. Angela Filoni
Dr. Maurizio Congedo
Guest Editors

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• psoriasis
• atopic dermatitis
• inflammatory skin disease
• melanoma
• non-melanoma skin cancer
• JAK
• biologic therapies