The psoriasis is a chronic disease subject to constant change, making it treatable but not guaribile. There are many therapeutic principals, designed to accelerate the disappearance of psoriatic spots, these drugs are very effective for some patients, less for others, there are also cases in which psoriasis heals spontaneously without pharmacological interventions.
In principle, however, the therapy should be adjusted to different extent and location of the disease, age, sex, severity of form and so on.
The choice of treatment should always be performed by a doctor, because some drugs can submit specific contraindications or determine serious side effects. In mild or moderate you prefer topical medications (local treatment), in the form of considerable scope and severity, we appeal to systemic therapies, often quite demanding. Both treatments local systemic ones go to cycles and not on an ongoing basis in order to reduce the risk of toxicity and side effects of a long-term treatment; suspension, especially in cases of systemic therapy, it should be implemented so gradually. Definitely recommended the use of moisturizing creams, which maintain the elasticity of the skin and help to eliminate or minimize microlesioni. Among the topical treatments must be made for products based pharmaceutics acetylsalicylic acid, in varying concentrations from 3% to 20%, or pitch, which facilitate the removal of scales and make the skin more elastic.
Much also used cortisone, in the form of lotions, creams, ointments, which also act on the inflammatory component, reduce the proliferation of keratinocytes (cytostatic action) and their action is usually rapid, but prolonged use may result in thinning skin all atrophy up; other drugs are represented by ointments based calcipotriol and tacalcitolo (analogues of vitamin D), which stimulate the proper maturation of the keratinocytes, without risk of significant side effects, and tazarotene, a retinoid (derivative vitamin A) used in gel 0.1%, particularly effective in mild and moderate forms, acting both as anti-inflammatory that normalizing the differentiation of skin cells.
The systemic therapy should be done with two major categories of drugs, retinoids and immunosuppressants. The only retinoid available orally is the acitretina, effective but toxic and reserved for more severe forms.
The immunosuppressive of choice are represented by methotrexate and cyclosporin, (the latter reserved for patients who did not respond or contraindications to the use of other therapies). Drugs are effective but have side effects sometimes very serious.
Often, when both local and systemic therapy is associated phototherapy, based on ultraviolet radiation type A and B (in particular the narrow-band UVB) with fluorescent lamps or halogen-metal, to be performed always under control doctor.