SAN FRANCISCO — Adalimumab is effective in treating both mild to moderate and moderate to severe skin disease in patients who have psoriatic arthritis, Dr. Dafna D. Gladman reported in a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Adalimumab, a tumor necrosis factor blocker, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2005 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.
To assess whether the severity of skin disease affected the response of psoriasis to the drug, Dr. Gladman and her associates performed a post hoc analysis of a 24-week, placebo-controlled phase III trial involving patients with moderately active to severely active psoriatic arthritis.
Previous therapy with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs had produced inadequate responses in all patients.
Among those patients in the adalimumab-treated group, 53 patients had mild to moderate skin disease, with a Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) score of less than 10 at baseline. Sixteen patients had moderate to severe skin disease, with a PASI score of 10 or greater.
PASI responses occurred quickly and were maintained.
After 24 weeks of drug treatment, the two subgroups had similar response rates. Comparing the mild-moderate and moderate-severe groups, a PASI 50 score (a 50% reduction from baseline) was achieved by 39 patients (74%) and 13 patients (81%), respectively; a PASI 90 score was achieved by 23 patients (43%) and 6 patients (38%) in the respective groups, reported Dr. Gladman of the University of Toronto.
Dr. Gladman is a primary investigator for Abbott Laboratories Inc., which manufactures adalimumab under the Humira brand.
Both patient subgroups, she noted, achieved “meaningful improvements” in quality of life, compared with baseline, as measured by the Dermatology Life Quality Index.