Psoriasis Comorbidity Increases over Time - MedPage Today

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By Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Patients with psoriasis have multiple comorbid conditions that tend to worsen over time, data from a review of medical records showed.

At baseline, psoriasis patients had significantly higher rates of hypertension than non-psoriasis controls (14.9% versus 11.9%, P<0.0001), cardiovascular disease (CVD)(3.9% versus 3.1%, P=0.0151), depression (3.7% versus 2.8%, P=0.0077), diabetes (6.3% versus 5.0%, P=0.0471), and hyperlipidemia (15.2% versus 11.5%, P<0.0001).

Psoriasis patients also had a numerically greater prevalence of obesity (0.6% versus 0.2%), and the differences between the two groups increased during four years of follow-up, researchers reported at the American Academy of Dermatology meeting here.

Differences increased the most for depression, hyperlipidemia, and obesity.

"The trends [are] all going directionally in the same way, and the point spread between the groups continues to widen over time," Alexa Kimball, MD, of Harvard, told colleagues.
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