Search
Related Links

 

 

Informative Articles

Does Music Impact Epilepsy – For Bad Or For Good?
His name was Kung Tsu Chen. He was a Chinese poet in 1847 when he described a rare but very real phenomenon now known as “musicogenic epilepsy”. With musicogenic epilepsy, the individual suffers from brain seizures that are triggered by music, and...

Effectively Dealing with Sadness
No one ever has a problem dealing with happiness or feeling good. When joy comes into our life we experience it freely, but when sadness or grief is present, we often struggle with them. This is especially true during the holidays when we are...

Great Uses of Tea Tree Oil - 21 Benefits of Tea Tree Oil Revealed
Tea Tree Oil has been known to the Bundjalung Tribe of New South Wales Australia for hundreds of years for its medicinal properties. This wonder oil was only tested scientifically in the early 1920's by Arthur Penfold and found to be around 12...

Inactive Alert: Essential Proteins for Sedentary People
The importance of protein in diet has been clearly established by nutritional scientists, and widely accepted by athletes. Among other vital functions, protein is indispensable for creating muscle. Just as important is protein’s essential ability to...

Speeding Myths and Facts
Speed Reading is one of those subjects that is spun to sound like a tonic that will solve all your educational ills and grow hair on your bald head for 2 easy payments of $19.99 each. At times it sounds like a medicine show. Some write about...

 
Understanding New Psoriasis Treatments Like Enbrel

The majority of the biologic therapies involve changing the amount of Tumor Necrosis Factor - Alpha (TNF-Alpha). TNF-alpha is involved in regulating abnormal responses like inflammation, increased blood vessel formaton (angiogenesis), and excessive development of skin cells (keratinocyte proliferation). It can also affect bone and cartilage erosion hence the reason that psoriatic arthritis is especially responsive to the new biologic therapies.

High Levels of TNF-Alpha are found in psoriasis as well as a host of other conditions including Crohn's disease, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis.

Interestingly, the severity of psoriasis correlates quite well with the levels of TNF-Alpha found in the blood.

The goal of the TNF inhibitor biologic therapies is to eliminate the excess TNF that is present so that you have normal levels. It is the excess TNF that is associated with the inflammatory reactions and hence some of the diseases manifestations. All of the underlying reasons for this are still uncertain.

Early treatments in psoriasis targeted large sections of the immune system. As we learn more the therapies such as the ones discussed in this article become more and targeted and affect a smaller segment of the immune system apparatus.

The three TNF inhibitors are etanercept (Enbrel), infliximab (Remicade) , adalimumab (Humira).

The medicines at this point appear safe. They should not be used in patients with a history of tuberculosis and congestive heart failure. As a dermatologist I have seen enormous improvements in the quality of life of patients due to these medicines. Caution still needs to be exercised as these are relatively new medicines and I feel they should be prescribed only when other medicines have failed or if there are signs of early and progressive joint involvement with failure of other medicines.

If one is able to completely control psoriasis with topical medicines and moderate light exposure / ultraviolet light phototherapy then this should be continued. I do not feel at this point that one should use these medicines because of the "ease" of treatment if other low risk traditional treatments work.

Due to the cost of these medicines and the


profits the drug companies have the potential to make, there is an aggressive marketing campaign to promote these drugs direct to people with psoriasis. As a result, I often have patients who come in requesting these medicines without them having any knowledge beyond 30 second commercials.

I tell all patients that at this point they appear safe with the emphasis on the "at this point." We never know what potential problems could arise 20-30 years down the road although they do appear safe. The decision to go on a biologic therapy should be balanced by several factors. 1) Do you have psoriasis covering a large part of your body and have conventional treatments that have been done exactly as prescribed by your doctor failed? 2)Do you have progressively worsening psoriatic arthritis?

If you have answered yes to either of the above questions you could be a candidate for these medicines and as always you should discuss treatment options with your physician.

Unfortunately, the medicines are not able to be taken by mouth. The simple reason for this is that biologics are proteins in structure and would be digested if taken by mouth. So, they must be given by injection or intravenously. The overwhelming majority of patients have little problem with this. The point I want to make is that just because they are injectable or intravenous does not mean that they are stronger with more side effects than medicine taken by mouth.

In summary, the new biologic therapies in psoriasis and other diseases like Crohn's and Rheumatoid Arthritis are a great advance in treatment and have improved the quality of life of many people suffering from the above diseases. They represent a whole new way of targeted treatment and are best used when safe, well known traditional treatments have failed.

About the author:

Jonathan Carp, M.D. is a board certified dermatologist practicing in Southern California. Although a firm believer and practictioner of western medicine, he has a special interest in nutrition, anti-aging medicine, fitness, and traditional health maintenance practices. He is committed to providing sensible, sound, scientfically-based health information. He publishes a psoriasis health blog at http://www.psoriasisinsider.com/

 

National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health
Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine offers access to health information for consumer, patient, and physicians ...
www.nlm.nih.gov
 
Health and Medical Information produced by doctors - MedicineNet.com
Doctor-produced health and medical information written for you to make informed decisions about your health concerns.
www.medicinenet.com
 
Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory
Collection of sites for health professionals, with sections on specific disciplines, organizations, continuing education, conferences, publications, ...
dir.yahoo.com
 
MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
Health information from the National Library of Medicine. Easy access to Medline and Health topics, medical dictionaries, directories and publications.
medlineplus.gov
 
Medicine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life ... The practice of medicine combines both science as the evidence base and art in the ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Journal Home - Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine has a vacancy for a Locum Assistant Editor for six months. The position involves working in all aspects of the editorial process, ...
www.nature.com
 
The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on ...
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research findings, review articles, and editorial ...
content.nejm.org
 
eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base
eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database in 62 ...
www.emedicine.com
 
Open Directory - Health: Medicine
the entire directory, only in Health/Medicine. Top: Health: Medicine (11429). Description · Medical Specialties (4888); Surgery (2265) ...
dmoz.org
 
the www virtual library biosciences medicine
www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/ - Similar pages
 
Medicine - home
Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice.
www.md-journal.com
 
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine serves as adviser to the nation to improve health.
www.iom.edu
 
ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News
Medical Research News. Health news on everything from cancer to nutrition. Full-text, images, updated daily.
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Google Directory - Health > Medicine
Search only in Medicine Search the Web. Medicine. Health > Medicine, Go to Directory Home. Categories. Alternative Medicine (6308) Basic Sciences (66) ...
www.google.com
 
the world wide web virtual library biosciences medicine
www.mcb.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html - Similar pages
 
PLoS Medicine - A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal
PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal published ... Every issue of PLoS Medicine contains a selection of readers' responses. ...
medicine.plosjournals.org
 
Medicine On-Line - Medicine Online -The International Medical Journal
Medicine Online - independent and peer reviewed journal published by Priory Medical Journals - priory.com.
www.priory.com
 
Entrez PubMed
PubMed is a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Stanford University School of Medicine
Home Page of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
med.stanford.edu
 
Medicine OnLine
Meds.com offers medical information and education on cancer (lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, leukemia) and HIV / AIDS for patients, ...
www.meds.com