ANTIBIOTICS FOR PSORIASIS

Report #6638 11/5/95

For more than 40 years, some dermatologists have included antibiotics in their treatment of psoriasis. Recent research shows that antibiotics probably should be part of the treatment when psoriasis plaques start to spread rapidly.

Psoriasis means that you make too much skin. Old skin cells are being shed and new ones are constantly replacing them. A new skin cell is laid down at the innermost part of the skin. Then as each successive new cell is laid down underneath it, it moves toward the outer layer until it is shed as dander, dandruff or scaling on the 28th day. Psoriasis means that the skin turns over 7 times as fast as normal so cells are shed after only four days. This causes thick plaques to form on the skin. Dermatologists have reasoned that something is turning over the skin too fast and it may be an infection. Scientists at Rockefeller University treated psoriatic patients with a molecule that selectively dampens an immune reaction by destroying T cells that are activated against the skin. Most had significant improvement in their skin lesions.

The researchers do not know what specifically activates a person's immunity to cause psoriasis, but it could be that people who are genetically destined to develop psoriasis develop plaques when their immunity is stimulated by some germ that is not yet known. Psoriasis is now treated with cell poisons that slow skin turnover. When the rash of psoriasis starts to spread, many dermatologists include antibiotics with the more conventional treatment.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News