Factors associated with the prescription of “traditional” or “biological” systemic treatment in psoriasis

Abstract

The choice of an adequate psoriasis treatment is critical to good disease management and to overall patient health. It is estimated that about 20–30% of patients requires systemic treatment: “traditional” (methotrexate, acitretina and cyclosporin) or “biological” (etanercept, adalimumab and infliximab). Clinical records of 784 outpatients with psoriasis were analyzed. 51.5% received traditional treatments and 48.5% a biological treatment. Males were 67.8% of patients. Psoriatic arthritis was observed in 37.3%. Females and younger patients were more likely to receive biological treatments. No differences were observed for Body Mass Index or for presence of comorbidities. Patients with psoriatic arthritis were also more frequently prescribed biological drug treatment. In a multivariate logistic regression model, only the older age-group (≥60 years) had a statistically significant OR (p = 0.001) with a reduction of about 80% the likelihood of receiving biological treatment compared to the younger age-group (<40 years). Patients with a PASI score ≥20 and patients with arthritis have a probability to be prescribed biologics about five times higher than the other patients. In conclusion, younger age, psoriatic arthritis and the previous use of systemic drugs are factors associated with the use of biological treatment rather than the traditional systemic drugs.

• Biologics
• psoriasis
• systemic treatment
• traditional

Acknowledgements

The Authors would like to thank all clinicians and patients who were involved in the study, and particularly to Valeria Pacifico, MD, Palmira Pastore, MD, Luca Leoni, MD, who contributed to the data collection.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

The study was partially supported by “Ricerca Corrente 2012” (projects 5.3 & 5.4) of Italian Ministry of Health, Rome, Italy.