acitretin

Overview

Acitretin is an aromatic synthetic retinoid and retinoic acid receptor (RAR) agonist used systemically for psoriasis and other keratinization disorders. It is not a cytotoxic agent but modulates keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation. Acitretin is teratogenic and is contraindicated in pregnancy. Its use as prior immunosuppressive or anti-psoriatic therapy is relevant in skin-cancer-risk studies because immunosuppression is itself a risk factor for keratinocyte cancers.

Evidence in the corpus

  • Acitretin was recorded as a prior immunosuppressive/anti-psoriatic exposure in individual patients in the NB-UVB phototherapy mutation-burden cohort (psoriasis patients receiving NB-UVB at a UK dermatology centre); it was not an intervention tested in this study and was not shown to affect the mutation-burden or mutational-signature outcomes. PMID:26950094

Resistance mechanisms

  • Not characterized in the corpus.

Cancer types (linked)

  • CSCC — squamous cell carcinoma of the skin; prior immunosuppressive exposures (including acitretin) are contextually relevant as risk modifiers in psoriasis patients undergoing phototherapy surveillance.
  • SKIN — skin cancer (general); mentioned in the context of skin-cancer surveillance in phototherapy-treated psoriasis patients.

Sources

This page was processed by entity-page-writer on 2026-05-15.