Today, we’ll talk about one of my favorite topics – psoriasis. I’m particularly excited about this blog because I’m happy to share a new treatment: Otezla. As many of you with psoriasis know, finding the perfect treatment is extremely difficult. And when you do, it often comes with a whole can of other problems to deal with.
That’s why the introduction of this new drug is incredibly exciting. In a recent trial, 528 randomized patients with moderate to severe psoriasis took Otezela, and 33% of those patients saw a 75% or greater reduction in the size and severity of the affected areas. Moreover, this reduction was maintained even after a year – that’s amazing.
Now, on to the element that I like the most about Otezla – it has no major side effects we need to worry about. Other psoriasis treatments usually function by suppressing our immune systems, but that’s not what Otezla does. To my knowledge, it’s the only psoriasis treatment without significant side effects. My only caution is that other psoriasis medications need to be closely monitored with blood draws, or we would be concerned about infections on the existing medications.
Finally, I have personally dramatic improvements in my patients – in fact, we were using it while we were waiting for other treatments to improve, but instead, the results were so good with Otezla that we stuck with it. My practice has also found it to be useful for eczema patients, and I can anticipate that it will be helpful for many other conditions in the future – I’m looking forward to finding out.