Psoriasis is a chronic, immune-mediated inflammatory disease that significantly affects a patient’s quality of life. Several systemic complications can influence disease progression and response to treatment. Biological therapy is considered the most effective therapeutic option in treating moderate to severe forms of psoriasis. The success of therapy may depend on its persistence, also known as drug survival. The dermatologist needs to be aware of comorbidities and factors that influence the persistence or discontinuation of biological treatment to make appropriate treatment decisions. We have identified several studies on the persistence of biologic therapy or drug survival in patients with psoriasis and summarized some of the most important issues known to date. In several recently published studies, the survival of ustekinumab is better than TNF‐α inhibitors but lower than ixekizumab. Notably, the studies were performed on a limited number of patients and follow-up time. Moreover, secukinumab appears to have a shorter drug survival than other biological agents, especially in patients with biological experience. A real indicator of therapeutic success could be a high quality of life. Female gender and obesity have been consistently highlighted among the predictors of treatment discontinuation, while psoriatic arthritis could be a predictor of persistence and maintenance of biological therapy. We are currently aiming to improve the therapy for patients treated with biological agents to reduce the pressure on the national public health system.
With recent advances in the understanding of psoriatic disease, it is increasingly considered a systemic inflammatory condition rather than limited to the skin and joints. A variety of biologics are available today for the treatment of psoriasis, but with them, characteristics such as rapidity of onset, long-term efficacy, safety profile, and effects on comorbidities differ. We designed an observational, non-interventional, retrospective study of patients with severe psoriasis receiving biologic treatment with IL-17 inhibitors and aimed to investigate the correlations between etiopathogenic factors and the efficacy and persistence of these therapies in a group of psoriasis patients from Romania. Study results show that patients treated with ixekizumab had better persistence and high adherence compared to those treated with secukinumab. In this study, ixekizumab demonstrated lower risks of non-persistence, discontinuation, and switching and a higher likelihood of high adherence compared with secukinumab. This study contributes to the understanding of the persistence of anti-IL17 biologic therapies in psoriasis and the factors that may influence it.