WEDNESDAY, Jan. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Etanercept, a soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor, was found to effectively treat moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in children and adolescents, according to research published in the Jan. 17 New England Journal of Medicine.
Amy S. Paller, M.D., of Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and colleagues randomly assigned 211 children and teens, aged 4 to 17, to weekly injections of placebo or 0.8 milligrams of etanercept per kilogram of weight, maximum dose 50 milligrams daily. After this 12-week phase, patients entered a 24-week open-label treatment phase. The primary endpoint was 75 percent or greater improvement over baseline in the psoriasis area-and-severity index (PASI 75) at week 12.
Fifty-seven percent of subjects in the treatment group met the PASI 75 goal, versus 11 percent in the placebo group. More patients in the treatment group also achieved PASI 90 (27 percent versus 7 percent) and a doctor's global assessment of clear or almost clear (53 percent versus 13 percent) at the end of the first phase. After the open-label phase, 65 percent of the initial placebo group met the PASI 75 criteria. Four serious adverse events occurred in the open-label phase.
"This randomized, placebo-controlled trial demonstrated that etanercept was effective in children and adolescents with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis," the authors conclude.
Paller and co-authors report financial relationships with a number of pharmaceutical companies. Immunex helped design the study, and Amgen analyzed the data and helped write the manuscript.
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