With the massive amounts of information about psoriasis today, it can be intimidating to try and keep abreast of not only new treatments, but their pros and cons.
Without this information, you cannot really make an informed decision about what to discuss with your doctor and what direction you might want to explore in your attempt to control your psoriasis symptoms. One of the newest groups of medicines are biologics, systemic medications (taken orally or injected).
The Latest and Greatest:
Patients with moderate to sever plaque psoriasis have new treatment options, recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: alefacept, efalizumab, and etanercept. One of these, etanercept has also received approval for treatment of psoriatic arthritis, giving new hope to these sufferers as well. The new biologics have been projected to be safer than other, older systemic medications, mainly the kidney or liver failure that long-term use of the older medications can cause.
New injected psoriasis treatments include:
- Alefacept. The original standard treatment of 12 weeks seems to be more effective with longer remission periods when treatment is administered for a longer period of 16 weeks. Side effects (mild and include infections, injection site reactions, itching, and flu like symptoms) show no significant increase with the www.homepsoriasisremedies.com longer period versus the standard time table. Repeated courses of alefacept seem to be proving safe and effective as well. Aside from the treatment of plaque psoriasis, this medication seems to be effective on palmoplantar psoriasis after 12 weeks of treatment, allowing the patients to walk without pain and use their hands again. It is also safe to begin alefacept treatment while weaning other therapies.