Matching-Adjusted Indirect Comparison of the Long-Term Efficacy of Deucravacitinib Versus Adalimumab for Moderate to Severe Plaque Psoriasis

Plaque psoriasis is an inflammatory disease that causes red, itchy, dry patches (called plaques) on the skin. The disease cannot be cured, but the symptoms can be treated. Deucravacitinib and adalimumab are two treatments approved for use in adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis; deucravacitinib is an oral medication and adalimumab is injected with a needle under the skin. Each treatment has proven its efficacy compared with placebo (a pill or injection with no active effect) in separate clinical trials, but because no two clinical trials are exactly alike, the results cannot be accurately compared. Matching-adjusted indirect comparison is a method used to compare the results of one clinical trial with those of another when a direct comparison is not possible; characteristics from the patients in one trial are made to match the patient population in the other trial, and the adjusted results are compared. We performed a matching-adjusted indirect comparison of an open-label extension trial of deucravacitinib with an open-label extension trial of adalimumab to study the long-term efficacy of each treatment. At 1 year of treatment, we observed that similar proportions of patients receiving each treatment achieved a 75% or 90% improvement from their baseline Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score, called PASI 75 or PASI 90, respectively. At 2 years of treatment, similar proportions achieved PASI 90, but the proportion of patients receiving deucravacitinib who achieved PASI 75 was greater than that of patients receiving adalimumab.