Background: Clinical trials study treatment outcomes under stringent conditions, capturing incompletely the heterogeneity of patient populations and treatment complexities encountered in real-world practice.
Objectives: To compare the effectiveness of anti-interleukin (IL)-17A biologics relative to other approved biologics in patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis.
Methods: The Psoriasis Study of Health Outcomes (PSoHO) is an ongoing 3-year observational cohort study in adults with chronic moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis initiating or switching to a new biologic. Primary study endpoint is the proportion of patients achieving 90% improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI 90) and/or static Physician Global Assessment (sPGA) 0/1 at Week 12 (W12) in the anti-IL-17A cohort (ixekizumab [IXE], secukinumab) vs. all other approved biologics. Secondary outcomes include the proportion of patients who achieve PASI 75/90/100, absolute PASI scores ≤5, ≤2 and ≤1, Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) score of 0/1 at W12 between the two cohorts and among the individual biologics. Comparative effectiveness analyses were conducted using Frequentist Model Averaging (FMA), a novel causal inference machine learning approach. Missing data for binary outcomes were imputed as non-response.
Results: Patient profiles in the anti-IL-17A cohort and other biologics cohort were similar, with more frequent comorbid psoriatic arthritis and less frequent exposure to conventional treatments in the patients receiving anti-IL-17A biologics. At W12, 71.4% of patients who received an anti-IL-17A biologic achieved PASI 90 and/or sPGA 0/1 compared to 58.6% of patients who received other biologics (odds ratios [OR], 1.9; 95% confidence intervals [CI], [1.6, 2.4]). Similar findings were observed for secondary outcomes.
Conclusions: These results reflect the high efficacy and early onset of skin clearance of IL-17A inhibitors observed in randomized clinical trials and confirm the effectiveness of anti-IL-17A biologics in the real-world setting.
© 2022 The Authors. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.