Journal Review of New Medications, Recent Guidelines in Dermatology

The 2025 Society of Dermatology Physician Assistant (SDPA) annual summer meeting from June 25 – 29th, held in Washington, DC, featured a session titled ‘Journal Review’ wherein its hosts highlighted a variety of clinically relevant articles from the past year regarding recent medications, changes in practice, and other key information for dermatology PAs.

This session was hosted by Cynthia Griffith, MPAS, PA-C, the editor in chief of the Journal of Dermatology for PAs (JDPA) and Nitsa Sebat, MS, PA-C, an assistant clinical professor at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, UC Davis. Griffith and Sebat reviewed national and international dermatology journals for current topics of interest to clinicians in attendance at their SDPA session, including Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (JAAD), JAMA Dermatology, and the British Journal of Dermatology.

“[One study] published in JAAD in January 2025 wanted to take a look at the biologic treatments that we are currently using for psoriasis and explore the actual risk, comparing them for fungal infections in general,” Griffith explained. “The researchers and authors talk in this paper about the theoretical risk of all of these biologics for our patients. There hadn't been a study yet to compare the different classes of biologics, and so these researchers actually did a retrospective study…what they found was the highest association with the IL-17 inhibitors for psoriasis. Interestingly, most of those cases were within the first year that the patient started those biologics.”

The meeting reviewed a variety of notable dermatology studies from these 3 major journals. Sebat and Griffith highlighted others such as a UK study comparing medical and PA students' performance, finding PA students comparable to interns. Another JAAD study from May 2025 concluded 5-digit toe socks effective for interdigital tinea. Later, Sebat and Griffith also touched upon an article related to hidradenitis suppurativa (HS).

“This was an article published in the British Journal of Dermatology, and they looked at about 300 patients seen in an HS specialty clinic over about a 5-year period,” Griffith said. “They looked at the intake forms where they asked about joint pain, muscle weakness, and fatigue around HS flares. We all think about psoriasis having extracutaneous manifestations, but I think this is trying to scratch the surface of these inflammatory conditions, asking ‘Is there something more to HS that's extracutaneous?’...They actually found that 1 in 5 patients in this cohort reported pain around the time of their flare and pain that was associated with needing a pain prescription, pain medication, or a diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis.”

The pair of presenter discussed a variety of other studies of note, including a British Journal of Dermatology study published in March 2025 linking severe atopic dermatitis in infants to higher risks of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and food allergies. Griffith and Sebat also pointed to a meta-analysis which had confirmed low-dose oral minoxidil's safety among patients with alopecia without routine blood pressure monitoring.

“They found that there were no significant blood pressure changes in otherwise healthy, no-risk factor individuals who were taking low-dose oral minoxidil,” Griffith said. “Limitations, again, were the heterogeneous dosing regimens. There was also not a control group. But really, the key takeaway is that low dose minoxidil is safe for alopecia without routine blood pressure monitoring and in low risk patients.”

For any additional information on this topic and related research highlighted at the 2025 SDPA conference, check out the latest conference coverage.

The quotes contained in this session summary were edited for clarity.