Safety and Efficacy of Systemic Psoriasis Medications

A systematic review and meta-analysis provide some long overdue comparisons of systemic therapies.

For ethical and practical reasons, nearly all studies evaluating therapeutic agents for psoriasis have included placebo for only 12 to 16 weeks, making it difficult to evaluate long-term efficacy and safety. This is important, because chronic psoriasis requires long-term treatment. These authors performed systematic review of 25 controlled trials of systemic psoriasis treatment of at least 24 weeks. Three studies with placebo control of at least 24 weeks were pooled to calculate a “placebo response” used for comparison with studies lacking long-term placebo control.

A PASI 75 response and a Physician Global Assessment of “clear/almost clear” showed etanercept, adalimumab, infliximab, ustekinumab, secukinumab, and apremilast to be more effect…

Reviewing Author

Craig A. Elmets, MD

Disclosures

Consultant / Advisory board Astellas Pharmaceuticals

EquityVaxin

Grant / Research support NIH; NIH/NCI; Veteran’s Administration; Ferndale Laboratories; Kyowa Hakko Kirin Pharma, Inc.

Editorial boards Cancer Prevention Research; Photodermatology, Photoimmunology, & Photomedicine; UpToDate; eMedicine; Journal of Dermatological Sciences; JAMA Dermatology

Leadership positions in professional societies American Academy of Dermatology (Vice Chair, Committee on Science and Research); Photomedicine Society (Board of Directors)