The TREAT NL (TREatment of ATopic eczema, The Netherlands, https://treatregister.nl/) registry is a prospective observational multicenter cohort study evaluating treatment with phototherapy and systemic therapy in patients with moderate-to-severe atopic eczema (AE) in daily practice.
AE is a common (400,000 patients in the Netherlands) chronic, itchy, inflammatory skin disease that can have a major impact on the quality of life of children and adults and their immediate surroundings. Moderate-to-severe AE patients can be treated by means of phototherapy or systemic immunomodulating therapy. Of these mostly off-label applied therapies, there is insufficient evidence on the short and long term for the effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness.
Moreover, good comparative research and long-term real-life follow-up data are lacking. With the arrival of new expensive treatments it is crucial to get insight into these treatments in order to improve quality of care. The data collected in our registry help to fill a high-priority knowledge gap within dermatology.
It is currently not clear which form of treatment should be used for which patient. Nationally and internationally, systematic reviews and other studies have been published highlighting the need to investigate this knowledge gap. We are working on a standardized data collection/storage platform to enable uniform data collection, compilation and analysis.
In the long term, we hope that our recommendations and analyses will complement the more short-term results of randomized controlled trials and ultimately contribute to the standardization and optimization of care pathways.
Researchers involved
Prof. dr. Phyllis Spuls Dr. Pina Middelkamp Hup Dr. Louise Gerbens Drs. Mariëlle Vermeulen Drs. Angela Bosma Drs. Annelie Musters Research nurse: Ariënna Hyseni