Topical therapies

About 70-80% of the patients with psoriasis have confined, localized diseases and are managed with topical treatments alone. The selection of a topical therapy should be based on patient expectations and peculiarities as well as lesion characteristics such as lesion localization and infiltration, degree of erythema, and amount of squamae. Pharmacological drug formulations are also extremely important in the efficacy of topical therapy. Topical treatment options include corticosteroids, vitamin D analogs, tazarotene, calcineurin inhibitors, salicylic acid, anthralin, and various combinations.