Biologic treatment options provide a major improvement over older systemic treatments, but patients still undergo frequent treatment changes to help control their disease.
Given its chronicity and impact on quality of life, psoriasis is a costly disease. As new and better treatments are developed, the cost of treating psoriasis has risen. In this drug profile, the authors discuss ustekinumab, its pharmacokinetics, safety profile, and direct and indirect costs to determine its cost-efficacy. The authors searched PubMed with specific search phrases for clinical trials investigating this issue over 5 years. Eleven articles analyzed cost-effectiveness of ustekinumab, and the references of these articles were included. Studies limited to 12 weeks reported that ustekinumab may not be cost-effective as it has high cost per injection and is costly when loading doses are required. Studies that went beyond 12 weeks documented that, with ustekinumab's infrequent dosing, it is cost-effective during the maintenance period.
Slime and Play-Doh have been gaining popularity among adolescents and preteens. Both are gooey, viscoelastic substances that can be morphed and molded into virtually anything imaginable. Slime can be made from several household products including school glue and borax, which have both been linked to cases of irritant and allergic contact dermatitis, conditions that historically involve activation of many immune-regulatory cells such as Langerhans' cells and T cells. We review the rising incidence of contact dermatitis related to Slime and Play-Doh, pathogenesis, and hallmark findings, along with several treatment options to help clinicians expediently diagnose and treat the condition.
When left untreated, psoriasis and rosacea can have long-term health and psychosocial implications. The purpose of this study was to estimate the percentage of Americans with psoriasis or rosacea who are not being treated. Patient data from a large claimsbased database were analyzed to identify the number of patients who are treated for psoriasis or rosacea. The numbers of patients treated were compared to the estimated prevalences of these diseases in the general population, identified from previously published sources. Of the 18,632,362 patients in the database, 140,439 (0.75%) were seen for psoriasis and 165,130 (0.89%) were seen for rosacea. Based on published sources, 3.2% of Americans have psoriasis and about 5.0% have rosacea. We therefore estimated that 77% of people with psoriasis and 82% of people with rosacea are untreated. Greater awareness, resources, and community outreach projects are potential tools that could eliminate this disparity and increase the quality of life for patients with these diseases.
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