Weekly adalimumab improved symptoms in patients with moderate-to-severe disease.

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) can be a chronic, debilitating skin disorder. It is thought to be secondary to immunological or structural changes of hair follicles, and treatment options, including antibiotics, retinoids, and steroids, often fail to control skin lesions fully. In a 16-week, industry-sponsored, double-blind study, investigators randomly assigned 154 adults with moderate-to-severe HS to adalimumab (Humira; a tumor necrosis factor-? antagonist, which acts by suppressing the immune system) given weekly or every other week or to placebo.

At 16 weeks, a significantly greater proportion of patients who received weekly adalimumab, but not those who received adalimumab every other week, showed a clinical response (i.e., a 2-grade improvement on a 6-point scale that encompasses numbers of abscesses, fistulas, and nodules), compared with patients who received placebo (18% in the weekly group, 10% in the every-other-week group, and 4% in the placebo group). A single serious infection occurred in each of the adalimumab groups; none occurred in the placebo arm.

CITATION(S):

Kimball AB et al. Adalimumab for the treatment of moderate to severe hidradenitis suppurativa: A parallel randomized trial. Ann Intern Med 2012 Dec 18; 157:846.