Biologics in Dermatology: A Brief Review

摘要

With the advent of biologic therapy, the treatment of various systemic and cutaneous diseases, especially autoimmune diseases, has been revolutionized. Most of the treatment modalities available prior to biologics aimed at producing clinical improvement of the disease without targeting the actual causative factors. Biologics are protein molecules produced by recombinant DNA technology, which target the specific sites in the immune-pathogenesis pathway of the diseases. Because of the specific action on immune system, biologics are presumed to have lesser side effect profile compared to the traditional immune-suppressants. However, the use of biologics is still limited because of unknown long-term safety profile and various aspects of the biologics need to be thoroughly evaluated by conducting large scale studies worldwide. In this review we give a brief description of various biologic agents that are known till date.