The quality of life in psoriatic patients is significantly impaired. Since this century, there have been biologics as a treatment for psoriasis. These biologics reduce symptoms, but more knowledge is needed about potential improvements in quality of life. As a result, biological therapy may be more valuable for patients who experience a lot of burden from their chronic skin condition in daily life. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the possible improvement of the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) in psoriatic patients using biologics.
An online search was performed in the PubMed database to identify relevant articles. Inclusion criteria for studies were psoriatic patients, a measurement of DLQI with biologics and without biologics. Exclusion criteria for studies were abstracts not written in English, publications before 2012, full text unavailable, quality of life measurements other than DLQI. Results from the studies with different biologics were combined into the outcome measure: ≥5 points of improvement in the DLQI score. Results of the studies in which biologics were compared with (conventional) systemic therapy were combined in the outcome measure: improvement of the DLQI score is better with biologics than with systemic therapy.
There were nine included articles with a total of 19.926 patients. Adalimumab, alefacept, etanercept, infliximab, ustekinumab and secukinumab were included biologics. Six studies measured the change in DLQI of different biologics in number of points. Of these six studies, 22 sub-analyses were performed and 20 of them showed a DLQI improvement of ≥5 points. The improvement in DLQI was better with biologics than with systemic therapy in two of the three measured studies.
Quality of life of psoriatic patients will be improved by the studied biologics. In the future, more research is needed into biologics on patient and quality of life characteristics.