Etanercept provided clinically meaningful benefit to patients with chronic plaque psoriasis, with no apparent decrease in efficacy after dose reduction.

No abstract

Psoriasis is a common inflammatory skin disease with a strong genetic component. We analyzed the genomic copy number polymorphism of the beta-defensin region on human chromosome 8 in 179 Dutch individuals with psoriasis and 272 controls and in 319 German individuals with psoriasis and 305 controls. Comparisons in both cohorts showed a significant association between higher genomic copy number for beta-defensin genes and risk of psoriasis.

This is the largest survey of people with psoriasis in Europe and shows that psoriasis has a profound impact on quality of life.