Characteristics of Psoriasis Patients According to Their Level of Severity Based on a Real-World Ambulatory Medical Database in France: Preliminary Results

OBJECTIVES: In psoriasis management, a large therapeutic arsenal is available for all severity stages, however maintaining control of the disease remains a challenge. Therefore, the use of Calcipotriol/betamethasone (Cal/BD) topicals in daily practice, between 2018 and 2022 was investigated.

METHODS: Retrospective observational study using the real-world ambulatory medical database THIN® France, which is GDPR compliant, and incorporates claims data.It includes 2,000 GPs and 25 dermatologists. As psoriasis is a chronic disease, all patients are followed for by their GP during the course of their treatment. A complementary prospective study (through an additional questionnaire implemented in the THIN® physicians’ software) has been performed.

RESULTS: In the retrospective part, a total of 4,781 Patients were included between April 1, 2018, and May 31, 2022 with a diagnosis of psoriasis and treated with Cal/BD. 15.2% of patients have been classified in a group ‘beyond mild’ psoriasis during the follow-up based on an implemented proxy. Significant differences have been observed between beyond mild vs. ‘mild’. Beyond mild patients were younger, had a longer mean duration of psoriasis (6.9 vs 5.2 years, p < 0.001), and had more psoriatic arthritis, less hypertension The results have highlighted the role of GPs in early psoriasis management prescriptions. The review of the literature suggests that an early treatment of such chronic disease may improve and possibly modify the natural course of psoriasis.

CONCLUSIONS: The "Beyond-mild psoriatic" patients were clinically different and tend to have more severe profile. The strength of this study is the consistency of the results provided by the retrospective and prospective studies.