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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Not all biologics are created equal when it comes to psoriasis. A long-term real-world study found that psoriasis patients treated with IL-17, IL-12/23, or IL-23 inhibitors were significantly less likely to develop psoriatic arthritis (PsA) compared to those on TNF inhibitors — with risk reductions ranging from 70% to 83%. The findings suggest biologic class selection could play a meaningful role in disease trajectory.
A new real-world study out of Greece suggests that the type of biologic a psoriasis patient receives may significantly influence whether they go on to develop psoriatic arthritis (PsA) — a common and debilitating complication. Researchers followed 393 adults with psoriasis over a median of 12 years across two university dermatology-rheumatology centers, comparing outcomes across four classes of biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs).
The results were striking: patients treated with IL-17, IL-12/23, or IL-23 inhibitors had dramatically lower rates of PsA progression compared to those on TNF inhibitors. Importantly, no significant differences were found among the three IL-targeting classes themselves, suggesting the key distinction lies between IL-targeting agents and TNF inhibitors as a group.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: For the roughly 22% of psoriasis patients who developed PsA in this cohort, early biologic selection could be a modifiable risk factor. While the authors caution that these findings are hypothesis-generating and need prospective validation, they open the door to a more strategic, disease-modifying approach to biologic therapy in psoriasis management.
