Patient Preferences in Hidradenitis Suppurativa Depend on Treatment Experience: Results from APProach-HS

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with significant unmet therapeutic needs. However, information on patient preferences for HS therapies is hitherto scarce. Our aim was to investigate the impact of treatment experience on patient preferences for pharmacological and surgical treatment of HS using conjoint analysis.

Discrete choice experiments were applied for the attributes treatment modality (tablets, subcutaneous injections, surgery with secondary intention healing or primary closure), probability of sustained therapeutic success, probability of mild or severe adverse events, and duration of treatment or wound healing. These attributes were subsequently correlated with treatment experience.

Overall, 216 patients with HS considered therapeutic success as most important (Relative Importance Score (RIS):36.2), followed by the treatment modality (RIS:24.0). Patients experienced with biologics favoured subcutaneous injections most (PWU:18.1 vs. -0.5, p=0.020), whereas biologic-naïve patients preferred tablets. Patients who had undergone surgery with secondary intention healing valued this approach (PWU:4.1 vs. -24.8, p=0.004) and therapeutic success (RIS:37.5 vs. 31.6, p=0.017) higher and the duration of wound healing lower (RIS:18.9 vs. 23.3, p=0.037) than others.

Individual preferences were depending significantly on treatment experience. Incorporation of this aspect could help to improve personalized care of patients with HS.