VIDEO: COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for patients with psoriasis

In this video, Joel M. Gelfand, MD, MSCE, professor of dermatology and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, spoke with Healio about COVID-19 vaccination among patients with psoriasis.

Gelfand addressed these and other COVID-19 management recommendations in patients with psoriasis during a presentation at AAD VMX 2021.

According to Gelfand, the National Psoriasis Foundation’s COVID-19 Taskforce stresses that patients get the first vaccine available to them.

“What we want to avoid is people thinking ‘this vaccine is better than that vaccine,’” he said. “That type of thinking will get people infected and having poor outcomes while they’re waiting to get the vaccine that they prefer.”

Gelfand explained that while experts are uncertain whether psoriasis medications impact the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, the task force recommends that most patients continue taking medications for psoriasis during the vaccination period.

The exception, he said, is that patients taking methotrexate aged 60 years or older with conditions that put them at risk for poor COVID-19 outcomes who receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should consider stopping the medication for 2 weeks after vaccination to help increase their immune response.

“That recommendation is extrapolated from influenza vaccine literature,” he said. “We just don’t know if it’s clinically meaningful for adenovirus vector vaccine for COVID-19, but that would be a cautious approach to consider.”