Efficacy and Safety of Abrocitinib and Upadacitinib Versus Dupilumab in Adults with Moderate-to-severe Atopic Dermatitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: The sparsity of head-to-head trials for medications used as in atopic dermatitis (AD) treatment makes therapy options difficult.

Objective: To better compare the efficacy and safety of abrocitinib and upadacitinib with dupilumab in patients with moderate-to-severe AD.

Methods: We systematically searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library database for head-to-head trials.

Results: Three studies with 2256 patients were included. The analysis revealed that improvement of EASI-75 was rapidly registered with abrocitinib/upadacitinib as compared to the dupilumab, even as early as week 2 of treatment. The proportions of patients who reached the endpoint of EASI-75 at week 12 and end of therapy were also higher in the abrocitinib/upadacitinib group. Significant improvement in EASI-90 scores was demonstrated with abrocitinib/upadacitinib at week 2 and at all subsequent time points. The administration of abrocitinib/upadacitinib provided a faster onset of IGA response at week 2. The differences in IGA response remained significant at week 12 and end of therapy. Compared with dupilumab, a larger proportion of patients treated with abrocitinib/upadacitinib achieved early itch relief at 2 weeks. Better results were found later during treatment, in between the 12 weeks to the end of study in abrocitinib/upadacitinib group. The only observed significant result of adverse events were severe adverse events between the abrocitinib/upadacitinib group (n = 40) and the dupilumab group (n = 24) (p = 0.043). TEAEs of any causality that led to treatment discontinuation and serious adverse events have not shown special risks in the patients treated with abrocitinib/upadacitinib.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that -JAK therapy, particularly abrocitinib and upadacitinib, exhibited superiority over dupilumab in achieving fast relief of disease signs with an acceptable safety profile in patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis.