Prevalence and Pharmacotherapeutic Management of Pediatric Psoriasis–A Descriptive Review

  Psoriasis is an auto-immune chronic inflammatory skin disease, which affects about 3.5% of the world’s population. Prevalence of psoriasis among children aged 0 to 18 years is 1% in the United State of America, 5.3% in eastern Saudi Arabia and is on constant rise in other parts of the world. An effective treatment of psoriasis in children may often be challenging mainly because of the lack of established therapeutic guidelines. The objective of this review, therefore, is to provide an update on the prevalence and the pharmacotherapeutic management of pediatric psoriasis, which could be beneficial to clinical pharmacists and other healthcare workers. This multifactorial papulosquamous disorder is linked with the genetic makeup of an individual although the various risk factors like obesity, stress, emotional imbalance, psychological disturbances, cold weather, skin irritation, infection in the respiratory tract and the presence of hemolytic streptococcus could trigger psoriasis. Plaque psoriasis is the most common; but, guttate, pustular disease, erythrodermic (red skin) and rheumatoid psoriasis diseases are also noticed in children. The successful approach for treating psoriasis in children depends on the precise selection of line of therapy on case-by-case basis to enhance benefit-risk ratio, with careful attention of its impact on the patient and family. Therefore, treatment of pediatric psoriasis must be rationalized based on the type and intensity of the disease to reduce probable side effects of drugs in children.