How Biologics Work

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SPEAKER
Psoriasis has a lot of different inflammatory triggers, and if we can specifically target each one of these, we can calm down the inflammation internally, and thus, help prevent the skin lesions that we see with psoriasis.

Biologics are a class of medications that were developed to alter certain portions of the immune system, that we know are involved in inflammation, which then leads to psoriasis. There are lots of different families of biologics, that each target different molecules depending on what your goal is.

Psoriasis has specific inflammatory markers, and if we can down regulate these with the biologic medications, then we can improve the disease.

Now, not all cases of psoriasis will require a biologic, but we do have them for patients that need them.

When we start off with biologics, we generally look at the patient as a whole, to see how much surface area of the body is involved with psoriasis, how debilitating is it, is there arthritis involved, because all of these play a role in what treatment you choose.

If there's arthritis involved, I strongly recommend biologics, and I also like my patients to follow with a rheumatologist.

If there's no arthritis involved, but there's a large surface area of psoriasis, then a lot of times, biologics are the right first choice, and we know they work well, and we feel very good about all of their safety profiles.