AAO 2024: Therapies offering hope for patients diagnosed with TED

Fatemeh Rajaii, MD, PhD, an associate professor at Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins, discussed emerging therapies in thyroid eye disease (TED) from her presentation at the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s annual meeting in Chicago.

Fatemeh Rajaii, MD, PhD: Hi. My name is Fatemeh Rajaii. I'm an associate professor of ophthalmology and the Odd Fellows Rising Professor of Ophthalmology at Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University. And I want to discuss the emerging therapies in thyroid eye disease. Since the FDA approval of teparatumamab, there's been a lot of pharmaceutical interest in thyroid eye disease and developing new therapies. Currently, they're broken down into 3 basic mechanisms. One is anti-IGF-1 receptor agents such as tepartumamab, but there are several in development, and anti IL-6 receptor agent such as Tocilizumab and others in development, like satralizumab and Tor-006 and then also also anti FCRN receptor agents, which function by trying to sort of reprogram the immune system by decreasing immunoglobulin half life. And those agents include betokelamab and ethnortigemod. So, I think it's a really exciting time to be treating people with thyroid eye disease. And I think in the next, you know, 3 to 5 years, we're going to have a lot more in our armamentarium to take care of these patients.

So, I think one thing is to remember to have a high index of suspicion for thyroid eye disease. Thyroid eye disease is the most common cause of either unilateral or bilateral proptosis in adults, but can also manifest in many different ways, such as eyelid retraction and even as something as minor as dry eye. So, really keeping that as keeping that index of suspicion high. And remembering to order labs in order to help rule it out is a good thing to keep in mind you.