Re:I had an autoimmune disease, then the disease had me (2013)
by oligopoly on Sunday March 12, 2017 @07:47PM
(#13854026)
> There's evidence that they increase the risk of cancer as well as other diseases
All drugs can have negative effects, but in the end it comes down to what's the risk/reward ratio. If someone is in constant pain and barely can do anything it really doesn't matter if you die 5 or 20 years down the road to cancer when you get x years to live somewhat normal life. Life in extreme suffering can be worse than death. This is based on personal experience.
Most of these are TFA inhibitors, but there are some newer ones that target other things, such as ixekizumab (Taltz) and brodalumab (Siliq), both approved very recently.
Common to biologics is that they're all fairly new, so their long-time safety is not established. They are more precisely targeted than immune-system therapies such as methotrexate (a chemotherapy drug that also works on psoriasis), but they do interfere with your immune system in scary ways. There's evidence that they increase the risk of cancer as well as other diseases. Brodalumab has been associated with an elevated risk of suicidal ideation and behavior (!), so there's that.