Sustained Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, Dermatology Life Quality Index and EuroQol-5D response of biological treatment in psoriasis: 10 years of real-world data in the Swedish National Psoriasis Register

Summary

Patients with mild disease are usually treated with topical treatments, meaning applied to the skin, while patients with moderate to severe disease require systemic treatments (taken inside the body), which includes drugs called biologics. PsoReg is the Swedish national register established in 2006 to monitor the long term effectiveness and safety of biologics. PsoReg records patients' Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), which is a way of measuring how severe and widespread a patient's psoriasis is at a given time, allowing doctors to see if symptoms are worsending or improving. PsoReg also records patients' Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), which takes into account how the disease is affecting their daily activities and emotional wellbeing. This study used data from 583 patients to see how switching to a biologic treatment, having not previously taken biologics, impacts on their PASI and HRQoL. PASI and HRQoL values were analysed at 3–5 months, 6–11 months, and at least once more after a year or more, up to 9 years after switch to biological treatment. The data showed significant improvement in these scores 3–5 months after the switch, and this improvement lasted the whole observation period. The results from this study may support clinicians in starting and continuing biological treatment for patients with disappointing results with other types of treatment.