Patients with severe chronic urticaria may not always respond to antihistamines. Other systemic treatments may either be ineffective or associated with adverse drug reactions. This publication focuses on evaluating the efficacy and safety of two TNF-alpha inhibitors namely adalimumab and etanercept in the management of chronic urticaria.
Chronic urticaria not responding to high-dose antihistamines is a therapeutic challenge, and in such cases, other systemic treatment options should be considered. Systemic steroids are usually prescribed but they are not feasible for the maintenance therapy and other immunosuppressive agents such as azathioprine, methotrexate, oral tacrolimus, and mycophenolate mofetil have only been used in small patient population. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) inhibitors have so far only been used to treat a total of eight patients with chronic urticaria…
