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Dermbits

What ingredients do you like to see in the products you use to treat plaque psoriasis?

Psoriasis

You. I'm a general dermatologist and I have a busy extended patch testing clinic. As such, ingredient lists and specifically inactive ingredient lists are something I look at frequently. There are a number of ingredients common to the vehicles of topical therapies that are irritants or allergens, but one ingredient I actually do like to see in a product is diethylene glycol ether, commercially known as transcutol. Transcutol is an excipient and it enhances penetration and permeation of drug and importantly it does so with less reported irritation and allergenicity than other commonly used excipients. One topical approved for psoriasis that I use frequently, in part because it contains transcutol, is empoise the point 25% clobatazole cream. So while there are varying levels of evidence to support the use of active ingredients on the market, like a topical steroid versus a nonsteroidal, I think that to look solely at the active ingredient and to make a decision for treatment based only on that is to miss some of the story.