PHILIP MEASE, MD: If the disease is very mild, not very severe joint disease, not very severe skin disease, then we may end up treating just with anti-inflammatory medicines, even medicines such as ibuprofen or over the counter Aleve can be helpful. For the skin, we may end up using topical steroid cream or topical vitamin D ointment, or sometimes light therapy.
Once we start to treat someone with more severe manifestations in either the joint or the skin, then we need to go to systemic therapies. There are some oral medications that have names like methotrexate, cyclosporine, sulfasalazine for the joints, etc., that can be helpful for the manifestations of the both the joints and the skin.
ANNOUNCER: Patients with severe psoriatic arthritis may be treated with biologic agents that inhibit inflammation.
BRUCE STROBER, MD: There are currently three FDA approved medications that are of that class. The first one that was approved is called etanercept; the trade name is Enbrel. And the second one that was approved for that condition, psoriatic arthritis, was called infliximab, or Remicade. And the third and most recent approval came for the medication adalimumab, also known as Humira.
ANNOUNCER: There are also new agents being tested in clinical trials.
BRUCE STROBER, MD: And I always say this to my patients, it's better to be a person with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis in 2006 than it is in 1996. And it'll even be better in 2016, because there will only be more options.
