In a subset of patients with new-onset moderate to severe psoriasis, early intervention with secukinumab resulted in sustained efficacy 1 year after treatment withdrawal. Researchers used the results to make the case for early intervention in psoriasis.
The paper appears in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Lars Iversen, MD, DMSc, of the department of dermatology and venereology with Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, served as the paper's first author. The authors were unavailable for interview, but we have distilled and organized excerpts from the paper into a Q&A format to make it useful for readers.
What evidence supports early intervention for patients with psoriasis?
Early intervention reduces cutaneous symptoms and may decrease the risk of long-term adverse outcomes such as cardiovascular disease. An inverse relationship between time to relapse and shorter disease duration further emphasizes the positive impact of early intervention in improving long-term disease outcomes. Early intervention is beneficial in rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease, resulting in improved long-term clinical outcomes. However, evidence supporting early intervention in psoriasis still remains limited and inconsistent.
