Emerging Oral Therapies Set to Transform the Psoriasis, PsA Treatment Landscape: Linda Stein Gold, MD

Oral treatment options for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) are rapidly expanding beyond traditional systemic therapies, says Linda Stein Gold, MD, dermatologist and director of dermatology clinical research at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan. Recently approved agents and late-stage pipeline drugs are demonstrating strong efficacy, favorable safety, and convenient dosing. As these therapies emerge, clinicians will need to refine how they select treatments for specific psoriasis subpopulations and consistently screen for psoriatic arthritis, particularly in patients with scalp or nail involvement.

This transcript was lightly edited; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

With so many new therapies emerging, how do you see treatments for psoriasis and PsA evolving over the next few years, and what role will personalized medicine play?
I see our treatment for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis evolving over the next few years to include more choices in the oral arena. Right now, our oral choices are somewhat limited. We've had deucravacitinib that recently came to market as an oral TYK [tyrosine kinase]-2 inhibitor, but we also have some new orals on the horizon. We have an oral IL [interleukin]-23 receptor blocker, which is oral icotrokinra, and this has been shown to have great efficacy, great safety, and great tolerability. We have new oral TYK-2 agents that have been completing phase 3 clinical trials that show really great efficacy, again, an oral agent, and they might be appropriate for certain psoriasis subpopulations, including maybe palms or soles or guttate psoriasis.

I think our options are really going to expand quite a bit, and we have to remember to check all of our patients or ask about the presence of psoriatic arthritis, and especially when we see scalp involvement or nail involvement, to really make sure that we're covered, even if the patient hasn't been officially diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis.

When reviewing challenging case scenarios, what insights do you hope clinicians gain about selecting the most effective therapy for individual patients?

I think what's interesting is when we look at the panel in how they answer the challenging case scenarios, we all do it a little bit differently, and that's the beauty of medicine. It's the art of medicine. There's not one right answer for any scenario. We fortunately have a number of great drugs, and just to become familiar with certain medications and when they're appropriately used, and I think we'll be able to better serve our patients.