The JAK/STAT signaling pathway is involved in the immune-mediated inflammatory skin diseases atopic dermatitis (AD), vitiligo, and alopecia areata (AA), and represents a potential target when developing treatments. So far, no drugs targeting this pathway have been approved for the treatment of dermatological diseases. We reviewed the use of drugs blocking the JAK/STAT pathway in the aforementioned diseases.

Introduction The Janus kinase and Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription protein (JAK/STAT) pathway is known to be involved in inflammatory and neoplastic skin diseases, like psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, alopecia areata, vitiligo and melanoma. Improved knowledge of the components of this pathway has allowed the development of drugs, which act by inhibiting the pathway, blocking specific components. This offers new therapeutic opportunities. Although evidence on the use of JAK/STAT blockades in dermatological diseases is growing, none have been approved for use in treating skin diseases. The aim of this study is to develop an a priori protocol to broadly review the available evidence on the use of drugs targeting the JAK/STAT pathway in the treatment of dermatological diseases. Methods and analysis For the conduction of the scoping review protocol, we will employ an established scoping review methodology described in the Joanna Briggs Institute manual. This methodology outlines a five-stage approach: (1) identify the research question; (2) identify relevant studies; (3) select studies; (4) chart the data and (5) collate, summarise and report the results, with an optional consultation exercise. Finally, we will use the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews to present the results. Ethics and dissemination Since this is a review of the literature, ethics approval is not indicated. We will disseminate the findings from this study in publications in peer-reviewed journals as well as presentations at relevant national and international conferences.

This research-on-research study describes efforts to develop non-Cochrane systematic reviews (SRs) by analyzing demographical and time-course collaborations between international institutions using protocols registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) or published in scientific journals. We have published an a priori protocol to develop this study. Protocols published in scientific journals were searched using the MEDLINE and Embase databases; the query terms “Systematic review” [Title] AND “protocol” [Title] were searched from February 2011 to December 2017. Protocols registered at PROSPERO during the same period were obtained by web scraping all non-Cochrane records with a Python script. After excluding protocols that had a fulfillment or duplication rate of less than 90%, they were classified as published “only in PROSPERO”, “only in journals”, or in “journals and PROSPERO”. Results of data and metadata extraction using text mining processes were curated by two reviewers. These Datasets and R scripts are freely available to facilitate reproducibility. We obtained 20,814 protocols of non-Cochrane SRs. While “unique protocols” by reviewers’ institutions from 60 countries were the most frequent, a median of 6 (2-150) institutions from 130 different countries were involved in the preparation of “collaborative protocols”. The highest Ranked countries involved in overall protocol production were the UK, the U.S., Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. Most protocols were registered only in PROSPERO. However, the number of protocols published in scientific journals (924) or in both PROSPERO and journals (807) has increased over the last three years. Syst Rev and BMJ Open published more than half of the total protocols. While the more productive countries were involved in “unique” and “collaborative protocols”, less productive countries only participated in “collaborative protocols” that were mainly published in PROSPERO. Our results suggest that, although most countries were involved in solitary production of protocols for non-Cochrane SRs during the study period, it would be useful to develop new strategies to promote international collaborations, especially with less productive countries.