Marked improvement in nail psoriasis during treatment with adalimumab.

BACKGROUND

Nail involvement is known as a common finding in psoriatic patients and represents a significant impact on patients' quality of life. The treatment of nail psoriasis is often challenging, and there is a need for new therapeutic options. Biologicals effective in the treatment of moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis may represent a new therapeutic modality for this disease. Adalimumab is a fully human IgG1 monoclonal antibody that binds to tumor necrosis factor alpha with high affinity and specificity.

OBSERVATIONS: We report two cases of rapid improvement in nail psoriasis under adalimumab monotherapy with maintained effectiveness despite intermittent treatment as well as long remission after therapy discontinuation.

CONCLUSION

The marked improvement of our two cases indicates that adalimumab may also help ameliorate nail psoriasis and warrants further controlled studies to establish the effectiveness and therapeutic regimes.