A new study adds fresh evidence supporting previous findings regarding the independent mortality risk associated with psoriasis. The study reports that psoriasis patients have double the risk of mortality than those who do not have psoriasis.
The research paper, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (Aug. 1, 2021; 85(2):396-403), evaluated 13,031 participants in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (2003-2006 and 2009-2010). Of the study participants, 2.7% had psoriasis according to a self-reported medical history questionnaire. Psoriasis is known to have associations with multiple systemic disorders, including an increased prevalence of cardiovascular, infectious and neoplastic disorders in these patients.
“Few studies have examined the independent cause-specific and all-cause risk of mortality among patients with psoriasis, and to our knowledge, none have been conducted on a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population,” wrote study author Dr. Yevgeniy R. Semenov, from the Division of Dermatology at Washington University School of Medicine, and his colleagues.
The study found that psoriasis was significantly associated with increased mortality risk (HR, 1.99; 95% CI, 1.01-3.93; p=0.047) with adjustment for demographics, smoking and comorbidities including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, chronic kidney disease and stroke, all over an average follow-up period of 52.3 months.
“These results call for an increased awareness of the mortality burden in psoriasis and more intensive monitoring of patients with psoriasis, particularly those receiving systemic therapies,” the authors wrote.