What To Look Forward To at the Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference, with Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD

The 44th Annual Fall Clinical Dermatology conference starts in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 24, 2024. It lasts for 4 days and involves a wide array of presentations and new data on various dermatologic conditions such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis, among many others.

The conference will feature many experts in the field of dermatology and authors of notable recent clinical studies, some of whom were highlighted in the HCPLive team’s recent Fall Clinical Dermatology 2024 Conference Preview. One such expert is Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD, clinical associate professor of medicine at the Rosalind Franklin University Chicago School of Medicine and Science.

Chovatiya spoke with HCPLive regarding the elements of the conference he is most looking forward to, which were highlighted to provide clinicians with a sneak preview from the perspective of one of the presenters at the conference.

“I think that every year we say this is the biggest and best one yet,” Chovatiya explained. “And I would not hesitate to say that that is also accurate too, for this year. I think one of the biggest things that we've just seen over the last few years is that when we think we've had a busy year, as far as therapeutic updates goes, there's always even more than next year.”

Chovatiya added that the field of dermatology is in what he views as a state of increased scientific discovery.

“For me, personally, I'm really looking forward to seeing therapeutic updates in terms of new treatments, new indications for older treatments, and even repurposing and clever ways to use treatments that we think that we already understand across a whole swath of disease states,” he said. “Not only psoriasis, not only atopic dermatitis, but other disease states like alopecia areata, vitiligo, and other inflammatory diseases. And a personal favorite, in part because of my own work there and the fact I get to talk about chronic hand eczema.”

Chovatiya noted that this is a disease state which has not necessarily been explored very deeply in the current research taking place within the United States.

“When it comes to chronic hand eczema, you might be asking, ‘Raj, don't you mean atopic dermatitis or allergic contact dermatitis, or maybe you mean irritant contact dermatitis?’ and the answer to all that is yes, actually,” Chovatiya said. “Chronic hand eczema is a really interesting disease that is highly prevalent, highly-burdensome, but actually very poorly-understood, particularly in the United States compared to other parts of the world.”

He added that one of the interesting elements that he will have the chance to cover is the understanding of how to you define chronic hand eczema, how common it is, what type of burden it results in for our patients, and what some of the gaps in knowledge are before directed treatment for this disease state can occur.

To stay updated on the latest data and interviews covered at Fall Clinical Dermatology, check out our latest updates here.

The quotes contained in this interview summary were edited for the purposes of clarity.