REVIEW   Free access

Giornale Italiano di Dermatologia e Venereologia 2018 June;153(3):375-82

DOI: 10.23736/S0392-0488.16.05516-4

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Back to the future: a new topical approach for mild-to-moderate psoriasis

Giampiero GIROLOMONI ¹ ✉, Piergiacomo CALZAVARA PINTON ², Antonio CRISTAUDO ³, Americo CICCHETTI ⁴

¹ Section of Dermatology, Department of Medicine, University of Verona, Verona, Italy; ² Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Section of Dermatology, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; ³ San Gallicano Dermatological Institute, IRCCS, Rome, Italy; ⁴ Postgraduate School of Health Economics and Management, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy

Psoriasis is a chronic-relapsing skin disorder which requires long-term treatments. Therapeutic options for psoriasis include topical treatments, phototherapy and systemic therapy. However, those treatments, and particularly the topical drug therapies, may present some limitations, including poor efficacy/tolerability ratio and lack of adherence. Recently, the supersaturated aerosol foam formulation of the fixed combination calcipotriene plus betamethasone dipropionate (Cal/BD) has gained major attention because it overcomes some of the limitations associated with other topical treatments. This fixed-combination has increased efficacy compared with its individual components. Moreover, the alcohol-free aerosol foam formulation allows a higher penetration of the active ingredients into the skin, resulting in enhanced bioavailability and, consequently, in better clinical outcomes than other products with the same components. Given the short duration of therapy course and the fast onset of action, a reduced amount of Cal/BD foam formulation would be required for the treatment of psoriasis patients, resulting also in cost saving. Therefore this novel formulation could represent an alternative to other topical agents and a first-line therapy in the treatment of mild and mild-to-moderate psoriasis

KEY WORDS: Psoriasis - Calcipotriene - Betamethasone-17,21-dipropionate