Pediatric Dermatology Essentials: Lisa Swanson, MD, on Treating Young Patients with Confidence

At the 2024 Elevate-Derm West Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, Lisa Swanson, MD, a pediatric dermatologist based in Boise, Idaho, shared insights from 3 informative pediatric dermatology sessions.

In an interview with Dermatology Times, Swanson discussed her presentations: "Text Messages to a Pediatric Dermatologist," "Pediatric Lumps and Bumps," and "Pearls in Pediatric Care." Each session was packed with practical takeaways for clinicians treating young patients, making it easier to navigate the unique challenges in pediatric dermatology.

"I hope to empower and inspire folks in the audience to consider these treatments for their patients," Swanson said, sharing her thoughts on her pediatric pearls session. "Just because they're little, it doesn't mean they don't deserve the best treatment available for them."

Transcript

Lisa Swanson, MD: Hi everybody. I'm Lisa Swanson, a dermatologist and pediatric dermatologist in Boise, Idaho. I work at Ada West Dermatology, as well as St Luke's Children's Hospital.

I was thrilled to participate in the Elevate-Derm Conference in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona, and it was wonderful. It was coming home for me. I actually grew up in Scottsdale, so it's nice to be back, especially at this time of year and not in July.

I was privileged to give 3 lectures during the course of the conference. My first lecture was about text messages to a pediatric dermatologist. We all need a friend sometimes, somebody to look towards for advice and counseling and support. And fortunately, I am that friend for a lot of folks out there when it comes to pediatric dermatology issues. Sometimes the little ones, they scare some providers, because maybe it's not your bread and butter; maybe it's not something you do all the time, and so it can be a little bit scary to be managing a pediatric patient. A lot of people will reach out to me via text message or via email. During my talk today, I shared some text messages that I thought taught good lessons about some common pediatric dermatitis, pediatric dermatology ailments, including facial predominant eczema, including guttate psoriasis, including perioral dermatitis, and including folliculitis, a very strange presentation for folliculitis; not to mention we talked a little bit about coxsackium and the atypical hand, foot, and mouth disease that it can present as, including things like onychomedicis and eczema coxsackium. It was a really good session. I hope everybody learned a lot and enjoyed it and took the advice that I gave these other people who were texting me, and could implement it in their clinics.

My second lecture was about pediatric lumps and bumps, and so this covered everything. I talked about a lot of vascular lumps and bumps, most specifically hemangiomas. I talked about the growth phase of a hemangioma, the lifespan of a hemangioma: what hemangiomas require treatment, what hemangiomas are most at risk for other associated issues. I talked about the treatment options available to treat hemangiomas, such as topical timolol, oral propranolol, and even oral nadolol, which some of us are using these days, inspired by our Canadian colleagues that studied it. I also talked about some common lumps and bumps, like molluscum and warts--things that we see every day in our clinics, but can be particularly pesky. So hopefully I provided some useful tools to folks in the audience about ways to manage these very common conditions in kids.

Lastly, my third talk was about pearls in pediatric care. We covered everything inflammatory in kids. We talked about atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, alopecia areata, and vitiligo. I shared some stories of kids that I have treated successfully with the wonderful, wonderful agents that we have to choose from these days. I really emphasized the importance of treating a child's atopic dermatitis and the consequences and comorbidities that can result and occur as a result of untreated or poorly controlled atopic dermatitis. I talked about the medications that we have available to treat kids with psoriasis and the fact that pediatric psoriasis incidence is increasing. I talked about some of the treatments we have now, and hopefully in the future, for vitiligo and alopecia areata. The JAK inhibitors play heavily in this space, and I talked a little bit about how I communicate with patients and their families about the safety profile of JAK inhibitors.

I hope to empower and inspire folks in the audience to consider these treatments for their patients. Just because they're little, it doesn't mean they don't deserve the best treatment available for them. Hopefully everybody got a lot from the session. It was certainly fun to talk to the audience about it, and anybody who wasn't there at Elevate-Derm in Scottsdale, you missed out. It was a great meeting, and sign up for next year.

[Transcript has been edited for clarity.]

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