Fargnoli (Sidemast): “To cure psoriasis, raise awareness among GPs”

Even 12 years of waiting before getting the first specific therapies. For patients with psoriasis, getting treatment is an odyssey. “The reasons for the delay in starting treatments are to be found in the territory. We must sensitize general practitioners to send patients to the specialist, but also sensitize the patient himself”. This was stated by Maria Concetta Fargnoli, full professor of Dermatology and Venereology at the University of L’Aquila and vice president of Sidemast (Italian Society of Dermatology and Sexually Transmitted Diseases), speaking at the press conference in Rome on the approval of reimbursement for the oral drug deucravacitinib.

The other problem is that the patient easily gives up on treatment. “There is a worrying tendency,” Fargnoli points out, “to abandon treatment as soon as there is an improvement, or to postpone the intervals of taking the drug without the doctor’s advice. Problems that arise from underestimating the condition.”

At the moment “for moderate-severe psoriasis we have several therapies – Fargnoli explains to Adnkronos Salute – conventional drugs that certainly have limits in terms of efficacy, but above all long-term treatment due to toxicity, and then we have innovative drugs including biologicals and small molecules. First-generation biologicals are very effective, but are often perceived as too strong by the patient who would instead like, especially in moderate forms, a less aggressive treatment”. Among the requests of patients “a drug that reduces the inflammatory burden and those that are associated comorbidities that require multidisciplinary management and therefore a collaboration between dermatologist, rheumatologist, gastroenterologist, just to give a few examples. This new molecule can help patients come out of their shell and get their lives back, because often because of psoriasis they avoid social relationships”, he concludes.