The Value of Precision Medicine in Atopic Dermatitis and Skin Cancers

Aaron Farberg, MD, a dermatologist and Mohs surgeon at Bare Dermatology and an assistant program director of the dermatology residency program at Lake Granberry Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, shared his top takeaways from Fall Clinical 2026 in Las Vegas. He discussed precision medicine in atopic dermatitis and melanoma, the new approval of Ameluz gel 10% plus photodynamic therapy (PDT), his current research in gene expression profile (GEP) testing, and the inflammatory disease pipeline.

Precision Medicine in Atopic Dermatitis

Farberg described the Advanced AD Treatment Test as a GEP test designed for patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis. It supports therapy selection in place of guesswork or simple clinical factors.

“Which therapy are you going to pick rather than guess or just use simple clinical factors? Let’s molecularly align our therapy with the patient’s disease,” Farberg said.

He recently submitted a paper on the use of the test. In it, the test helps identify Th2 drugs, informs a switch to a JAK inhibitor, and guides topical therapy.

“It’s a great way of thinking about our new approach to therapy selection,” Farberg said.

DecisionDx-Melanoma 31-GEP Data

The DecisionDx-Melanoma 31-GEP test recently released top data from the largest prospective GEP study. The study was originally highlighted at EADV in Vienna. It stratified patients and met its primary end point of identifying a group with a lower than 5% risk of a positive node.¹

“Sure enough, it worked, stratified the patients, and met a primary end point,” Farberg said.

Ameluz for Superficial Basal Cell Carcinoma

Farberg noted Ameluz (aminolevulinic acid hydrochloride) plus PDT is now approved for superficial basal cell carcinoma. He called basal cell the most common cancer in the world.

“Not every patient wants their skin cancer cut out,” Farberg said. “So this now gives us another alternative, another option to surgery to help our skin cancer patients.”

Advice for Early-Career Dermatologists

In the early career session, Farberg advised doing everything honestly and thoroughly enough to sleep at night. He cautioned against taking on work likely to cause significant worry or problems.

“My goal is to do everything above board: be honest, be true, and do the best for your patients,” Farberg said.

Inflammatory Disease Pipeline

Looking ahead, Farberg said atopic dermatitis, hidradenitis suppurativa, and psoriasis are all here to stay. He pointed to psoriasis in particular.

“There are so many new molecules in the pipeline. I can’t even go through them all,” Farberg said. He expects psoriasis to remain a topic of discussion “for the rest of our lives.”

Reference

1. Late-breaking EADV 2026 data support use of DecisionDx-Melanoma in SLNB decision-making and risk-aligned post surgical management. News release. Castle Biosciences. September 30, 2026. Accessed October 11, 2026. https://ir.castlebiosciences.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/485/late-breaking-eadv-2026-data-support-use-of-decisiondx-melanoma-in-slnb-decision-making-and-risk-aligned-post-surgical-management