Psoriasis Management Challenges Regarding Difficult-to-Treat Areas: Therapeutic Decision and Effectiveness

Abstract

Psoriasis is not optimally controlled in spite of newly developed treatments, possibly due to the difficulty of objectively quantifying the disease's severity, considering the limitations of the clinical scores used in clinical practice. A major challenge addresses difficult-to-treat areas, especially in the absence of significant body surface involvement. It is controversial whether the severity evaluation of patients with several affected areas (having at least one difficult-to-treat area) should be done differently from current methods. Scores used for special areas (PSSI, NAPSI and ESIF) allow an accurate assessment of disease severity in difficult-to-treat areas, but the issue of whether to integrate these scores into PASI, BSA or DLQI remains. The review's purpose resides in providing an overview of the main current issues in determining psoriasis severity in patients with psoriasis in difficult-to-treat areas and suggesting possible solutions for the optimal integration of the area assessment in current scores: severity can be either established according to the highest calculated score (PASI or PSSI or NAPSI or ESIF) or by adding a correction factor in the calculation of PASI for special areas.

Keywords: difficult-to-treat areas; psoriasis; psoriasis scores.

Figure 1

Minimum efficiency criteria for moderate-to-severe psoriasis; ∆ = improvement of the score compared to baseline. Abbreviations: PASI—Psoriasis Area and Severity Index; BSA—Body Surface Area; PSSI—Psoriasis Scalp Severity Index; NAPSI—Nail Psoriasis Severity Index; ESIF—Erythema, Scaling, Induration, Fissuring.

Figure 2

Issues and possible solutions in psoriasis severity effective calculation. Abbreviations: PASI—Psoriasis Area and Severity Index; BSA—Body Surface Area; PSSI—Psoriasis Scalp Severity Index; NAPSI—Nail Psoriasis Severity Index; ESIF—Erythema, Scaling, Induration, Fissuring.