Testing different doses of delgocitinib cream for the treatment of chronic hand eczema

Linked Article: Worm et al. Br J Dermatol 2022; 187:42–51.

Chronic hand eczema (CHE) causes intense itching and dry skin. It is a common disease and affects around 10% of the population at some time during a year.

Delgocitinib cream inhibits enzymes in the body called Janus kinases (JAKs). The JAK family of enzymes play a role in inflammation and causing eczema. Delgocitinib cream is not yet licensed for medical use but is currently being investigated as a possible treatment for CHE.

In this trial, four different doses of delgocitinib cream were tested and compared with a placebo cream (a cream that looks like the drug being tested but does not contain any medicine). The trial was funded by LEO Pharma, it was conducted in the USA, Germany, and Denmark and included over 250 patients.

All patients in the trial were adults and had CHE. Patients were treated twice daily for 16 weeks with one of the four doses of the cream or with placebo. Neither the patients nor the trial doctors knew which cream each patient received.

The patients who used the two larger doses of delgocitinib (8 mg/g and 20 mg/g) had larger improvements in their CHE than those who used placebo. After 16 weeks of treatment, all or most of the CHE had cleared up in about 37% of the patients using delgocitinib at the larger two doses but in only 8% of the patients using placebo.

The most common side-effects among the 208 patients who used delgocitinib cream were itch (6 patients), eczema (3 patients), pain where the cream was used (3 patients), headache (2 patients) and burning or prickling sensation of the skin (2 patients).

Overall, the findings from this trial suggest that delgocitinib cream may be an effective and safe treatment for patients with CHE. More and larger trials are investigating this further.