The pharmacological treatment of psoriasis

Abstract

Psoriasis is a chronic, multisystemic, autoimmune disease with an unknown etiology that can severely affect patients’ lives. Chronic inflammation is the hallmark of the disease, with treatments aimed at decreasing the immune response either locally or systemically. Topical treatments involve the usage of compounds such as steroids, retinoids, coal tar, vitamin D analogues and others, on psoriatic lesions directly, while systemic treatments involve the usage of immunomodulatory agents to induce immune suppression, by acting on large segments of the immune system using compounds such as methotrexate, or by inhibiting the action of specific inflammatory mediators such as IL-12/23 or IL-17A.