Our study supports the role of TNF-alpha polymorphisms in predicting the response to anti-TNF-alpha agents. In particular, we found that the presence of -238G>A and -308G>A polymorphisms is associated with poor response to a 3-month therapy with etanercept. However, our data have yet to be validated in larger cohorts.

A noteworthy number of NMSC were diagnosed in this Mediterranean population of patients exposed to high-dose UV treatment. A thorough risk-benefit evaluation should always be done before UV treatment and patients should be carefully monitored for skin cancer during and after treatment discontinuation.

Our study showed that tacrolimus 0.1% ointment may be an efficacious and safe therapeutic opportunity in the treatment of nail psoriasis. Our data should be confirmed by a double-blind study with a larger sample of patients.

Although the heterogeneity of the therapeutic response to TNF-α blockers seems to be mainly due to genetic factors, several studies showed that a range of factors may influence it. The aim of our study was to investigate the impact of patients' demographic and clinical characteristics on primary response to an anti-TNF-α therapy in psoriatic patients. We retrospectively examined the relationship between various clinical and demographic features and response to treatment with etanercept, adalimumab, and infliximab, evaluated as PASI75 and average PASI improvement at weeks 12, 16, and 14, respectively. We analyzed data obtained from 199 patients. A better response to the treatment was significantly associated with male gender (OR = 2.59), coexistence of psoriatic arthritis (OR = 1.97), and PASI ≤15 at baseline (OR = 0.91). The present study supports that some clinical factors may be potential predictors of response to anti-TNF-α agents in psoriatic patients.

Background Psoriasis is an inflammatory chronic skin disease, characterized by redness (erythema), thickness and scaling of the skin, and by remittance/relapse phases of variable length. 1-3 It affects men and women in similar proportions, while the onset age is variable-though the disease most frequently occurs in young-adults. 4 The typical cutaneous manifestations of psoriasis and its chronic course significantly interfere with the affected

Background Real-world data can inform the use of biologics for psoriasis (PSO). Objective The aim was to evaluate treatment patterns and analyze pharmacoutilization in PSO patients in a real-world Italian setting, with a focus on the biologics most recently introduced. Methods An observational study based on administrative databases was conducted. Patients were included based on PSO diagnosis identified by either discharge diagnosis or exemption code or prescription of anti-psoriatic topical drugs (proxy of diagnosis). To describe patient characteristics and treatment patterns using the most up-to-date data, two different approaches were used: a cross-sectional study performed during 2016-2018, and a longitudinal study conducted with patients who received their first biological/targeted synthetic drugs (naïve patients) in 2014 and 2017 (the inclusion periods).

Background: Interleukin (IL) inhibitors achieve greater levels of efficacy than older systemic therapies. We calculated the number needed to treat (NNT) of ixekizumab compared with other IL inhibitors approved in Italy for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Methods: The clinical efficacy was evaluated in terms of NNT, based on the results of a recent network meta-analysis (NMA) by the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The NMA investigated many systemic and biological treatments, but this analysis compared only the efficacy of the following IL inhibitors – brodalumab, guselkumab, ixekizumab, risankizumab, secukinumab, tildrakizumab and ustekinumab – for patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Drugs were compared and ranked according to effectiveness considering the PASI (Psoriasis Area and Severity Index) 90 score. Results: One-hundred and forty trials (51,749 patients) were included in the NMA. Considering the proportion of patients who achieve PASI90, ixekizumab showed the lowest NNT among all comparators (ixekizumab 2.01 [2.46-3.00]; risankizumab 2.05 [2.50-3-05]; guselkumab 2.16 [2.68-3.36]; secukinumab 2.40 [2.90-3.51]; brodalumab 2.61 [3.18-3.88]; ustekinumab 3.44 [4.12-4.95]; tildrakizumab 3.10 [4.15-5.59]. Conclusion: The findings show that ixekizumab is the most effective option (NNT) for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

The elevated CECs level that we found in a sample of high selected psoriatic patients could be expression of endothelial damage. Lowering of CECs count after treatment with Etanercept support the hypothesis that an effective systemic therapy of psoriasis may also improve the endothelial function.