The effect of psoriasis on patients' quality of life and improvements associated with alefacept therapy.

Patients with psoriasis may experience impaired psychosocial mental status regardless of their objectively defined disease severity. The objective clinical measures of disease that are commonly used to evaluate a patient's psoriasis fail to take into account the effect of psoriasis on patients' quality of life (QOL). As a result, a significant number of patients are dissatisfied with conventional treatments and are searching for new options. A high unmet need for effective and safe long-term therapies that can also improve patients' QOL exists in psoriasis. Alefacept, a selective biologic agent specifically designed for the treatment of psoriasis, provides improvement in both the physical (as measured by the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index) and mental (as measured by the Dermatology Life Quality Index) aspects of the disease. Additionally, alefacept is extremely well tolerated, with no negative effect on QOL, and the improvement in QOL are maintained off-treatment, which is consistent with its remittive effects on the disease. Alefacept helps fulfill the needs of psoriasis patients by providing efficacy, safety, off-treatment remissions, and improvement in QOL.