Psoriasis and Dry Skin: The Impact of Moisturizers

In the dawn of twenty-first century, psoriasis is considered a chronic, systemic, inflammatory disease that affects skin and its appendages. Dermatology has entered the era of specific systemic treatments with biological therapeutic agents. On the other hand, emollients and moisturizers are still essential in the topical adjuvant treatment of psoriasis not only in the remission phase. They are excellent supplements to the classical and novel treatments and help to reduce the scale load of the individual patient. Their major role is to support the normalizing of hyperproliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. In addition, they exert anti-inflammatory effects, e.g. through physiological lipids. The improvement of epidermal barrier function and stratum corneum hydration makes the skin resistant to external stressors, causing the Kobner phenomenon in psoriasis.