Psoriasis Update–Current Therapies: Clinical Pearls

Bruce Strober, MD, PhD

Below are some important clinical pearls from Dr Strober’s update on psoriasis:

• Apremilast achieves PASI 75 in approximately 30% of patients after 16 weeks of therapy.
• Apremilast has FDA-approval for the treatment of both psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.
• Apremilast also has been shown to provide improvement for nail and scalp psoriasis, and the reduction of pruritus.
• Apremilast is associated with a >5% weight loss in between 10-20% of treated patients.
• Data from the clinical trials of apremilast for the treatment of psoriasis do not convincingly support the contention that treatment with this drug causes depression and/or suicide.
• Multiple independent registry studies show ustekinumab having the best durability of use, with patients remaining on this drug longer than other biologic and systemic drugs.
• Rates of hospitalized infectious events are very low and fairly comparable between the various modalities, systemic and biologic, used to treat psoriasis.