Topical corticosteroids or vitamin D analogues for plaque psoriasis?

Psoriasis is a frequent chronic inflammatory disease. The plaque variant being its most common form of presentation. Although there is still no cure, treatment alternatives that induce remission and reduce lesions are available. Topical therapies, particularly corticosteroids and vitamin D analogues, are considered effective, but it is still not clear which would be the best alternative. To answer this question, we used Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic reviews in health, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We identified eight systematic reviews including 26 studies overall, of which 22 were randomized trials relevant for the question of interest. We extracted data from the systematic reviews, reanalyzed data of primary studies, conducted a meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach. We concluded there might be little or no difference in clinical response between topical corticosteroids and topical vitamin D analogues, but topical corticosteroids are less irritating at the site of application. No studies evaluating their long term adverse effects were found.