Table 2.

Promising treatments in dermatomyositis

Drug	Type of Study	No. of patients who received treatment	Dose	Concomitant steroid use	Concomitant Steroid sparing agents	Treatment response (%)	Source
Lenabasum	Phase 2 double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled	20	20 mg BID	Yes	Yes	13/18 (72%) achieved low skin disease activity (CDASI ≤ 14) at week 68	Werth [27, 28]
Abatacept	Phase 2 randomized, treatment delayed-start trial	19	Weight-based dose individuals weighing < 60 kg received 500 mg, those 60–100 kg received 750 mg, and those > 100 kg received 1000 mg.	Yes	Yes	8/19 (42%) achieved the DOI at 6 months	Tjamlund [29]
Tofacitinib	Single-center open-label prool-of-concept study	10	11 mg XR daily	Yes	No	10/10 (100%) met the primary outcome DOI at 12 weeks, with 50% demonstrating moderate improvement and 50% having minimal improvement based on the TIS	Paik [30]
Rituximab	Randomized placebo-phase--controlled trial (post hoc analyses)	120	Based on BSA: children with BSA < 1.5 m2 received 575 mg/m2 per infusion; adults and children with BSA of 1.5 m2 received 750 mg/m2 up to 1 g per infusion	Yes	Yes	The cutaneous visual analog scale activity improved in adult DM (3.22 1.72, p = 0.0002) and JDM (3.26 1.56, p < 0.0001) at 44 weeks	Aggarwal [31]