3. Discussion
Hidradenitis suppurativa, tissue damage
HIDRADENITIS SUPPURATIVA, DISEASE, SCARRING
Hidradenitis suppurativa is a chronic, painful disease that can lead to permanent tissue damage and scarring, and it has a significant negative impact on quality of life [Treatment with povorcitinib QD over 8 weeks was associated with a dose-dependent modulation of several proteins of interest, some of which have been previously reported to be differentially expressed in serum samples from patients with moderate-to-severe HS versus those from healthy controls [These findings may also have implications for the identification of predictive biomarkers in HS. Few studies have investigated the role of biomarkers in predicting HS treatment response, and there are currently no validated clinical biomarkers for this purpose [The study described herein was limited by the small sample size and unavailability of paired biopsies for all patients, which may affect the interpretability of our findings. Transcriptomic data were not available for time points between baseline and Week 8, nor from the 60 and 90 mg povorcitinib QD dose groups, which limits the detection of time- and dose-dependent effects of povorcitinib on DEGs. In addition, patients in the study were not stratified by disease severity, and this study had a short treatment duration (8 weeks) compared with previously reported HS clinical trials. In contrast, proteomic data were available for all dose groups and for both Week 4 and Week 8 timepoints. These data show that proteomic changes appeared to already plateau by 4 weeks, suggesting a rapid onset of action.