Interleukin-18 expression and the response to treatment in patients with psoriasis

Rasmy, Hanaa; Mikhael, Nancy; Ismail, Somaia

In conclusion, based on the increased IL-18 expression levels in psoriatic skin lesions relative to uninvolved skin, this cytokine appears to be crucial in the development of the active psoriatic lesion itself, where it is produced locally by a step in the evolution of the psoriatic lesion. This could be supported by its correlation with clinical severity, disease duration and its expression reduction after treatment. The decreased expression after treatment was not to an extent indicating that the skin had returned to normal. The small size of the study population and the heterogeneous group of patients participating in the study preclude the drawing of firm conclusions. Future studies on genes involved and array based technologies should allow confirmation of the results. Also further studies are recommended to try other lines of treatment for psoriasis. One of these lines of therapy is to try r-h IL-18 BP to neutralize IL-18 activity on a wide scale that may ultimately lead to improved outcomes for patients.