Razoxane: a review of 6 years' therapy in psoriasis

Razoxane is an effective drug in the systemic treatment of psoriasis, with an initial response rate of 97%. After continuous therapy for up to 6 years we found that 72% of patients remained on the drug with a good therapeutic benefit. We found it to be useful in all forms of cutaneous psoriasis and psoriatic arthropathy. It does not appear to produce hepatic damage and is therefore particularly useful in patients intolerant of methotrexate. We use it as our drug of first choice in the systemic treatment of psoriasis, but it does have several well-recognized side-effects which make careful follow-up necessary. Eighteen per cent of patients stopped razoxane because of these side-effects. However, we feel that razoxane has a valuable place in the systemic treatment of severe psoriasis.