Vujic I, et al. - This paper strived to characterize psoriasis patients treated with apremilast in a real-world setting. In addition, it estimated the drug survival as a significant measure of efficacy and compliance. Variations were disclosed between real-world and trial patients. Nevertheless, apremilast was found to be safe and effective for the treatment of skin psoriasis in the daily practice. Approximately 40% of patients would achieve PASI50 or higher. Only a small proportion of patients would reach PASI90. It was determined that body-weight could influence the drug efficacy.

Methods

• The recruitment consisted of psoriasis patients that received apremilast between April 1st 2015 and January 19th 2017.
• The analysis was performed every 4 weeks.
• The following was documented: Age, weight, height, smoking status, family history of psoriasis, joint involvement, previous treatments, psoriasis area severity index (PASI) scores, and the onset and duration of adverse events (AE).
• A scrutiny was pursued of the efficacy by PASI50, PASI75, and PASI90, reflecting the improvement of skin lesions compared to the PASI-baseline.
• Kaplan-Meier statistics were utilized for drug survival estimates.

Results

• Forty-eight patients were examined in this trial.
• The median apremilast drug survival was 12.5 weeks (range 1-87).
• 3 patients (6.3%) reached PASI90, nine (18.8%) PAIS75 and eight patients (16.7%) PASI50.
• An inverse association was illustrated between the patient weight with a PASI50 response (p<0.05, n=37), and none of the obese patients (BMI>30.0, n=6) reached PASI75, compared to 32% of the non-obese patients (BMI<30.0, n=31).
• Atleast one AE was displayed by 31 patients (64.6%), most frequently diarrhea (n=21, 43.8%), headache (n=7, 14.6%) and joint pain (n=5, 10.4%).