Skip to main content
Top

24-08-2018 | Psoriatic arthritis | News

Regulatory update

UK guidance recommends ixekizumab for the treatment of PsA

print
PRINT
insite
SEARCH

medwireNews: Ixekizumab has been recommended by the UK National Institute For Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment option for patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

The interleukin-17A inhibitor may be given to adult patients with active PsA and an inadequate response to a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor, or those in whom TNF inhibitors are contraindicated.

The NICE guidance specifies that ixekizumab response should be assessed after 16 weeks, and treatment should only be continued in patients with “clear evidence of response,” defined as an improvement in two or more of the Psoriatic Arthritis Response Criteria (PsARC), one of which must be tender or swollen joint score, with no worsening in any of the four criteria.

For patients who experience at least a 75% improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score, but who do not meet the PsARC criteria for a response at week 16, NICE recommends that a dermatologist should “determine whether continuing treatment is appropriate based on skin response.”

These recommendations follow the approval of ixekizumab for treating PsA in Europe and the USA at the end of 2017.

By Claire Barnard

medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare. © 2018 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature group

See also:

print
PRINT