Long-term use of fumaric acid esters for the treatment of psoriasis in daily practice

Abstract

Background

Fumaric acid ester (FAE) is the most commonly prescribed first-line systemic therapy for the treatment of psoriasis in Germany. Although developed in the 1990s, only limited long-term data are available.

Methods

Data of 200 adult psoriatic patients from 10 study centers were collected in a noninterventional, multicenter, retrospective analysis. The inclusion criteria was treatment with FAE in 2015.

Results

Eighty-two percent of the patients were naive to systemic treatment. Ten percent of all patients had FAE-treatment for 10 years or longer with an average drug survival of 4.32 years. The maintenance dose was ranging from 1–4 120 mg tablets for 87.5% of the patients. In our population, 14% of the patients stopped therapy during the first six month mainly due to gastro-intestinal side effects. No serious side effects were reported. Seventy-eight percent of the patients responded to FAE therapy with improvement of their psoriasis to mild (61%) or clear (17%). The PASI 75 response was achieved in 44% of the patient during long-term treatment without remarkable differences between moderate or severe plaque psoriasis.

Conclusion

Our study confirms FAE therapy as a long-term, first-line treatment for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

Keywords:

• Psoriasis
• fumaric acid
• comorbidity
• efficacy
• systemic treatment

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Marlene Jagodzinski, Questdata Hannover for statistical analyses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study has received unrestricted grant from Almirall Hermal GmbH, Reinbek, Germany.