Effectiveness and safety of ustekinumab for the treatment of psoriasis; six years of clinical experience

Abstract

Background

This work aimed to investigate the long-term clinical experience with ustekinumab in cases with psoriasis.

Materials and methods

This retrospective cohort research group consisted of cases who presented to the dermatology outpatient clinics between January 2015 and January 2021, diagnosed with psoriasis, and were treated with ustekinumab. Data including gender, age, weight, disease duration, naïve and non-naïve status, psoriasis type, duration of medication, comorbidities, psoriasis area and severity index scores, the causes of treatment discontinuation, and previous treatments were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed.

Results

160 cases with psoriasis were treated with ustekinumab during the research period. Twenty-four patients were excluded. Among 136 cases, 84 (61.8%) were male and 52 (38.2%) were female. We determined 80.55% of the non-naïve cases responded to ustekinumab.

Conclusion

Ustekinumab can be a suitable treatment option for non-naïve and resistant patients. Our data suggest the positive effect persists in cases with favorable responses to the first or second dose of ustekinumab. Also, we determined male cases gave more rapid and more robust responses than female cases, and patients were more willing about continuing the treatment.

Keywords:

• Psoriasis
• ustekinumab
• biologic

Acknowledgements

M. Gönülal and D.D. Balcı organized the study. M. Gönülal, D.D. Balcı, A. Öztürk S. Doğan recruited the patients. M. Gönülal and D.D. Balcı performed the statistical analyses. M. Gönülal, D.D. Balcı, A. Öztürk S. Doğan wrote the manuscript. M. Gönülal, D.D. Balcı, A. Öztürk S. Doğan provided helpful criticism and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Author contributions

Both authors contributed to the writing of the original report.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data has been received in İzmir Tepecik Training and Research Hospital.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.