Therapy of Moderate-to-Severe-Psoriasis PDF

Preface

Over the years, psoriasis has challenged physicians to achieve better control of this disease. Patients, however, must cope with its chronicity, appearance, psychological burden, expense, time-consuming treatments, and problematic therapeutic responses. Many patients—and even some physicians—have concluded that little can be done for psoriasis, but this attitude ignores the many treatment advances developed in recent years. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, we are entering an era of many new drugs related to the immunological basis of psoriasis.

The goal of this book is to provide guidelines on state-of-the-art clinical management of moderate-to-severe psoriasis utilizing the experience of a group of experts well known in each area. There is also a chapter highlighting recent advances in our understanding of the clinical manifestations, epidemiology, and pathogenesis of the disorder. Several chapters discuss immunological aspects of psoriasis and the new group of immunomodulators or ‘‘biologics.'' The treatments covered include several types of ultraviolet B (UVB) phototherapy, photochemotherapy (psoralen/ultraviolet A; PUVA), methotrexate, retinoids, cyclosporine, and the first biologics likely to become available. Because pediatric patients and patients with psoriatic arthritis present special treatment problems, we have also included chapters on these patient populations. We hope that the reader will learn some new approaches to therapy or perhaps add some new wrinkles to old treatments that may improve the comfort of their patients.

We thank the distinguished clinicians who contributed to this book and especially the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) for sponsoring this undertaking. The NPF is the major lay advocacy group for psoriasis patients in the United States and provides outstanding services in patient education and research support. We urge all of you to join the NPF and to encourage your patients to join and reap the benefits of this organization.