Down-titration of infliximab: The real-life use in psoriatic patients

Recently, the down-titration of the anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) agents has become common for the patients with a low disease activity, particularly in rheumatology. However, in dermatology, this practice has not been investigated, even if it is already used by several Psoriasis Centres in Italy. We reviewed the charts of patients treated with in iximab at two Italian Referral Psoriasis Centres. Our study considered a total of 32 patients, whose 20 received in iximab at longer intervals (10 weeks) and 12 at the standard intervals (8 weeks). The group who received the treatment every 10 weeks showed a higher percentage (25%) of relapses, while in the second group, only 2 patients had a worsening of psoriasis (17%). However, the P-value was 0.28, which cannot be considered statistically significant. Our results demonstrated that in iximab could be down-titrated without a significant increase risk of relapses.The main advantage of this administration method may be the improving of the patient’s quality of life. So, for patients with a low disease activity, it may be suitable prolonging the dose intervals. Limitations of our study included the retrospective non- interventional nature and the absence of a control group with the same patient characteristics.