Short-term Cyclosporine Therapy for Psoriasis

To the Editor.—

I read with interest the article by Gupta et al¹in the April 1989 issue of theArchives, describing the beneficial effect of short-term cyclosporine for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis. We studied 14 patients (9 males and 5 females; age range, 33 to 82 years; mean age, 55 years) with chronic psoriasis. Eight patients had chronic widespread plaque-type, 4 patients suberythrodermic, and 2 patients erythrodermic disease. The patients were all receiving inpatient treatment and, as well as conventional dithranol or tar therapy, each patient received both methotrexate and cyclosporine given in combination for the short-term treatment of their psoriasis. Methotrexate was given by intermittent low-dose weekly infusions (between 2.5 and 12.5 mg over 36 or 48 hours), a method of methotrexate administration that had previously been shown to achieve similar effects to conventional intermittent oral or parenteral methotrexate administration and which did not give significant