Find Here The New Drug Treatments For Psoriasis

Psoriasis treatments vary with the skin condition of each person. We introduce Amevive and Rapitva as treatment drugs. How effective are they? 

Find Here The New Drug Treatments For Psoriasis

How Is The Experimental Drug Amevive Shown To Be Effective?

The treatments can be as bad as the disease for people with severe psoriasis. Offering hope of a more targeted and less risky approach to coping with the disease are several new therapies currently being studied. 

A skin disease that appears as patches of raised red skin covered by a flaky white buildup is psoriasis which affects approximately 1-3% of the world’s population. Although the exact cause is unknown, it is thought to be related to faulty signals sent by the body’s immune system. 

Currently, the best options for severe psoriasis, are immune-system suppressing drugs used to treat cancer and organ transplant patients whereas these drugs now come to be very toxic. 

Proving to be very effective at controlling the disease and doing so with few side effects are the new agents that specifically target cells that contribute to the skin condition. 

Charles N. Ellis, MD, professor and chief of dermatology at the University of Michigan Health Systems, tells they are in a position to treat these most serious cases of psoriasis over the long term with a therapy that has an excellent safety profile for the first time. It is not usually life-threatening as psoriasis is a terrible thing to have. Therefore, a drug’s safety profile comes to be critical. 

Ellis and colleagues report that the experimental drug Amevive made by Biogen is effective and comes to be well tolerated in the treatment of patients with moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis the most common form of skin disorder in July 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. 

With either Amevive or an identical-looking placebo, in the study, 229 patients received 12 weeks of injections. For an additional 12 weeks, they were then monitored. Approximately one out of four patients who got the new drug had complete or nearly complete clearing of their psoriasis at the end of the follow-up period. As three of them had also received additional treatment, three patients on placebo had similar results. 

Before needing a second course of treatment, patients were able to go about 10 months. 

Additional courses of therapy with Amevive are as effective as the first course with previous European and American studies on approximately 1,500 psoriasis patients have shown. Some patients have received three courses of the drug and continue to respond according to Ellis. 

Things are looking up for people with psoriasis in general. Reporting that the vast majority of psoriasis patients given the arthritis drug Remicade responded well to treatment just last month as a study in the journal The Lancet highlighted. 

Mark Lebwohl, MD, who chairs the department of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, at New York University, was saying that they will therefore see a radical shift in the treatment of this disease. Not only impacting how they treat psoriasis but how we treat other diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease as well as a variety of other conditions, you are sure to see multiple agents entering the market. 

How Effective Is Raptiva For Psoriasis Treatment?

The heartbreak of psoriasis is no joke for millions. Showing that it eases the itch is now new studies of a psoriasis treatment called Raptiva. 

According to a news release, the findings on Raptiva was presented at an American Academy of Dermatology meeting in Chicago. 

Kenneth Gordon, MD, professor of dermatology at Loyola University in Chicago, in the news release says with 24 weeks of continuous therapy, the results show a high percentage of patients experiencing clinically meaningful response to Raptiva. 

That which causes the development and maintenance of psoriasis plaques, Raptiva works by blocking T-cells (immune cells). 

The Data

368 patients received at least one dose of Raptiva for the first 12 weeks, while another treatment group then received a placebo in one study.

Patients could elect to continue with once-weekly doses for another 12 weeks after the initial 12-weeks study period. 

Producing the best results is a long-term psoriasis treatment. 

It was found that there was a fourth of the patients then achieved a 75% reduction as in test scores that then measured psoriasis symptoms at 12 weeks. 

Almost half of the patients treated achieved a 75% reduction of symptom scores at 24 weeks. 

There were similar results in a 21-month study of Raptiva. For the first 12 weeks, patients received 2 mg doses of Raptiva weekly. Continuing a 1 mg maintenance dose for the duration of the study period are those who reduced their symptom scores by 50%. Maintaining or improving their symptoms after the three months of therapy were researchers showing that patients receiving 21 months of continuous therapy with Raptiva could. It was also shown that the therapy was safe as well as tolerable. 

The reactions mostly decreased over time and were not serious though some patients had reactions during the 12 weeks of psoriasis treatment that include headache, colds, pain, nausea, and fever. 

Supporting the safety and tolerability of Raptiva for moderate to severe psoriasis treatment in fact was results pooled from four phases III gold standard trials of 2,335 patients. 

What's Your Reaction?

like
0
dislike
0
love
0
funny
0
angry
0
sad
0
wow
0