Indian Traditional Treatments for Psoriasis: A Critical Appraisal of Available Evidence Supporting Efficacy

AbstractPsoriasis is an immune-mediated chronic inflammatory skin disease with multifactorial etiology. Although many drugs are available in biomedicine for the treatment of psoriasis, these therapies are aimed at controlling the disease rather than a complete cure. In India, traditional systems of medicines like Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, and homeopathy are practised for psoriasis. This review examines data from 17 selected studies supporting the clinical efficacy of medical management approaches from these systems using outcome indicators employed in clinical practice and research for psoriasis. All studies reported good improvement as per the study-specific outcome. However, study characteristics, including study design, sample size, follow-up period, inclusion and exclusion criteria were heterogeneous, and the choice of outcome measures was not adequate to conclude the effectiveness of the intervention. Future studies in this area must incorporate a comprehensive study design with specific outcome measures like Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), PASI 75, PASI 90, quality of life parameters, compliance to medications, adverse reactions, remission period, relapse rate and cost-effectiveness with long term follow-up. While analysing the individual formulation, we noted the use of some herbs as common ingredients in several formulations across different systems of medicines. The currently available evidence on the roles of these herbs at molecular level in psoriasis is p...
Source: Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Source Type: research