Young Psoriatic Patients Respond Faster to Dimethyl Fumarate: Age-related Differences in Efficacy and Adverse Events

Background: Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an oral treatment approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to treat moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis among adult patients.

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate sociodemographic, anthropometric, and medical characteristics in patients with psoriasis without previous history of traditional systemic therapy and to observe if the efficacy or AEs of dimethyl fumarate correlate to any of the patients' characteristics.

Methods: Ninety-two patients with mild-to-moderate psoriasis were enrolled. Each patient was reviewed at 4, 12, 24 and 36 weeks. The PASI score and any clinical side effects or blood count abnormalities were recorded.

Results: After 4 weeks, a decrease in the median value of PASI index was already noticeable (p<0.001). After 12 weeks of treatment, 43.9% of patients reached PASI-50, 12.3% PASI-75. The patients achieving PASI-75 after 12 weeks of treatment were significantly younger than those who did not. Age, BMI index, gender and gastroprotection used were not significantly related to the occurrence of side effects.

Conclusion: Profiling of patients could be useful in predicting the response to treatment. In our study, younger patients were found to respond better to dimethyl fumarate.