Relationship Between Affected Body Surface Area and Initiation of Systemic Therapy in Psoriasis Patients

Body Surface Area (BSA) can be insight into real-world treatment patterns in psoriasis patients.

Conclusions:

• These results support the notion that dermatologists may use BSA as a helpful criterion in determining whether to initiate systemic therapy in psoriasis patients.
• Systemic therapy initiation was independently associated with a BSA of 5% or greater, which is also commonly used threshold to indicate moderate to severe disease.
• The extent to which other tools measuring psoriasis severity (e.g., Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, Physician’s Global Assessment, Dermatology Life Quality Index) was not evaluated and could be proxies for BSA or used in conjunction with BSA in the decision-making process.