From the academy
Guidelines of care for the management of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis: Section 2. Psoriatic arthritis: Overview and guidelines of care for treatment with an emphasis on the biologics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2008.02.040Get rights and content

Psoriasis is a common, chronic, inflammatory, multisystem disease with predominantly skin and joint manifestations affecting approximately 2% of the population. In this second of 5 sections of the guidelines of care for psoriasis, we give an overview of psoriatic arthritis including its cardinal clinical features, pathogenesis, prognosis, classification, assessment tools used to evaluate psoriatic arthritis, and the approach to treatment. Although patients with mild to moderate psoriatic arthritis may be treated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and/or intra-articular steroid injections, the use of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, particularly methotrexate, along with the biologic agents, are considered the standard of care in patients with more significant psoriatic arthritis. We will discuss the use of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs and the biologic therapies in the treatment of patients with moderate to severe psoriatic arthritis.

Abbreviations used

AAD
American Academy of Dermatology
ACR
American College of Rheumatology
AS
ankylosing spondylitis
DAS
Disease Activity Score
DIP
distal interphalangeal
DMARD
disease-modifying antirheumatic drug
FDA
Food and Drug Administration
HAQ
Health Assessment Questionnaire
IL
interleukin
NSAID
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug
PsA
psoriatic arthritis
PsARC
Psoriatic Arthritis Response Criteria
QOL
quality of life
RA
rheumatoid arthritis
TNF
tumor necrosis factor

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Funding sources: None.

Conflicts of interest: The authors' conflict of interest/disclosure statements appear at the end of the article.

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