Effect of Calcipotriene/Betamethasone Dipropionate 0.005%/0.064% Foam on Target Lesions in Plaque Psoriasis: A Post-Hoc Analysis

Psoriasis is a common, chronic, inflammatory skin disease that affects approximately 7 million adults in the United States and many more worldwide.^1,2 The characteristic scaling and erythematous plaques of the disease can be disfiguring and, in addition, painful, or severely pruritic.³ In fact, psoriasis can be detrimental to the physical, social, and psychosocial well-being of the individual, so much so that the disutility and deterioration in quality of life felt by these patients can often be comparable to other serious chronic diseases, according to a systemic literature review.4,5 Morphologic evaluation of these plaques or skin lesions is important in diagnosis and in classification of the psoriasis subtype within the disease spectrum. Plaque psoriasis, for example, the most common form of the disease—manifests as well-defined, sharply demarcated, erythematous plaques of varying size.³ These lesions commonly appear as areas of scaly skin, red raised areas on the skin, dry skin, and crusty plaque features that contribute to the burden of the disease and are associated with the worst quality of life from psoriasis for patients.⁵ Disease severity in psoriasis is determined by the amount of redness, scaliness, and thickness of the lesions, either across different body regions or on a predefined target lesion, or both. The Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) is the gold standard for measuring psoriasis severity.^6,7

There is no cure for plaque psoriasis at the present time, leaving the goal of treatment to be achievement of complete clearance of skin symptoms and improvement in the patient’s quality of life.⁸ Despite a rapidly evolving treatment landscape for psoriasis, topical corticosteroids and vitamin D3 analogues