No abstract

Scientific advances are continually improving the knowledge of acne and contributing to the refinement of treatment options; it is important for clinicians to regularly update their practice patterns to reflect current standards. The Global Alliance to Improve Outcomes in Acne is an international group of dermatologists with an interest in acne research and education that has been meeting regularly since 2001. As a group, we have continuously evaluated the literature on acne. This supplement focuses on providing relevant clinical guidance to health care practitioners managing patients with acne, with an emphasis on areas where the evidence base may be sparse or need interpretation for daily practice.

Information regarding the safety of biological drugs prescribed to psoriasis patients on daily and long-term bases is insufficient. We used data from the BIOBADADERM registry (Spanish Registry of Adverse Events for Biological Therapy in Dermatological Diseases) to generate crude rates of infection during therapy with systemic drugs, including biological drugs (infliximab, etanercept, adalimumab, and ustekinumab) and nonbiological drugs (acitretin, cyclosporine, and methotrexate). We also calculated unadjusted and adjusted risk ratios (RRs) (with propensity score adjustment) of infection, serious infections, and recurrent infections of systemic therapies compared with methotrexate, using Poisson regression. Our study included records of 2,153 patients (7,867.5 person-years). The adjusted RR of overall infection was significantly increased in the groups treated with adalimumab with methotrexate (adjusted RR = 2.13, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.2-3.7), infliximab (adjusted RR = 1.71, 95% CI = 1.1-2.65), cyclosporine (adjusted RR = 1.58, 95% CI = 1.17-2.15), ustekinumab with methotrexate (adjusted RR = 1.56, 95% CI = 1.08-2.25), and etanercept (adjusted RR = 1.34, 95% CI: 1.02-1.76) compared with methotrexate alone. Cyclosporine had a significant risk of serious infection (adjusted RR = 3.12, 95% CI = 1.1-8.8), followed by adalimumab combined with methotrexate (adjusted RR = 3.28, 95% CI = 0.8-13.5). Adalimumab in combination with methotrexate had the highest risk of infection recurrence (adjusted RR = 4.33, 95% CI = 2.27-8.24).

Patients receiving biologics had lower risk of AE. We did not find differences in the risk of serious or fatal AE.

Recent genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified >20 new loci associated with the susceptibility to psoriasis vulgaris (PsV) risk. We investigated the association of PsV and its main clinical subphenotypes with 32 loci having previous genome-wide evidence of association with PsV (P < 5e-8) or strong GWAS evidence (P < 5e-5 in discovery and P < 0.05 in replication sample) in a large cohort of PsV patients (n = 2005) and controls (n = 1497). We provide the first independent replication for COG6 (P = 0.00079) and SERPINB8 (P = 0.048) loci with PsV. In those patients having developed psoriatic arthritis (n = 955), we found, for the first time, a strong association with IFIH1 (P = 0.013). Analyses of clinically relevant PsV subtypes yielded a significant association of severity of cutaneous disease with variation at LCE3D locus (P = 0.0005) in PsV and nail involvement with IL1RN in purely cutaneous psoriasis (PsC, P = 0.007). In an exploratory analysis of epistasis, we replicated the previously described HLA-C-ERAP1 interaction with PsC. Our findings show that common genetic variants associated with a complex phenotype like PsV influence different subphenotypes of high clinical relevance.

Psoriasis is a common, chronic inflammatory immunologically mediated disease of the skin, showing a high prevalence of associated comorbidities, and strongly affecting patients' health-related quality of life (HR-QOL), with profound impact on the psychological aspect. We aimed to establish the correlation between HR-QOL and the associated comorbidities in patients with moderate to severe psoriasis in Spain. A cross-sectional, observational, epidemiological study was conducted at 68 dermatology-based centers across Spain. From October 2010 to June 2011, all adult patients diagnosed with moderate to severe psoriasis at least 6 months prior to the study visit and receiving or not receiving treatment for psoriasis were eligible for inclusion. A total of 1022 patients were included. The study population showed mean 36-item short-form (SF-36) physical and mental health scores and Dermatological Life Quality Index (DLQI) of 49.7, 46.2 and 5.3, respectively. The multiple linear regression models showed that patients with moderate to severe psoriasis and a diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), hypertension, diabetes mellitus, sleep disturbances or obesity were found to have lower SF-36 health physical scores. Female patients with depression or anxiety disorders had lower SF-36 health mental scores. Patients diagnosed with moderate to severe psoriatic disease and associated anxiety disorder had greater DLQI scores. Moderate to severe psoriasis has a significant burden on the HR-QOL of patients. Regardless of sex, patients with several comorbidities such as PsA, hypertension or obesity were found to have worse scores in the physical component of the QOL questionnaire, whilst women were more affected in the mental health component than men.

Psoriasis improves when IL-17 is blocked. Anti-TNF drugs reduce the IL-17 signaling pathway, and anti-IL-17 drugs are being developed to treat moderate-to-severe psoriasis. We analyzed three SNPs in IL-17A (rs2275913 and rs10484879) and IL-17F (rs763780) to look for an association with psoriasis and/or with response to anti-TNF drugs or ustekinumab. We included 197 healthy controls and 194 patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis. The results of the univariate analysis showed an association between rs10484879 and psoriasis, although this relationship disappeared after adjustment for HLA-C (rs12191877). We also found an association between rs763780 (IL-17F) and response to ustekinumab (n = 70) and infliximab (n = 37) at 3 and 6 months and an association between rs763780 and the response to adalimumab at 6 months (n = 67).

Serious adverse events are more common in elderly patients, although they may be related to other variants that are associated with this age group and not due to the treatment itself. Use of biologics was associated with lower risk of adverse events in the whole group. We found no differences in this association between young and elderly. These results are reassuring, although uncontrolled confounding could not be excluded as an explanation for these findings, and the power of the study to detect differences was low.