GI surgery linked with increased risk of developing psoriasis

There are little age- and sex-related effects of gastrointestinal surgery on psoriasis, says an article published in International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases. There are several manifestations of psoriasis, a common chronic skin condition commonly characterized by erythematous papules and plaques with a silver scale. Most instances are handled in an outpatient environment since they are often not severe enough to significantly impact general health. Rare, life-threatening manifestations are possible and may need thorough inpatient care. Surgical procedures on the digestive tract may traumatize the body and disturb the microbiota, which may lead to psoriasis. Therefore, in order to investigate links between gastrointestinal tract procedures and recently diagnosed psoriasis, Yi-Huei Liu and colleagues undertook this study.

Patients with newly diagnosed psoriasis from 2005 to 2013 were gathered for this nested case-control research from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Researchers in this study evaluated if the patients had received gastrointestinal tract surgery in hindsight (5 years from the index date).

The key findings of this study were:

1. Newly diagnosed psoriasis was found in 16 655 patients, who were matched with 33 310 people who served as the control group. By age and sex, the population was divided into groups.

2. Age and psoriasis did not correlate (20 years: aOR 0.80, 95% CI 0.52-1.24; 20-39 years: aOR 1.09, 95% CI 0.79-1.51; 40-59 years: aOR 0.89, 95% CI 0.57-1.39; 60 years: aOR 0.82, 95% CI 0.54-1.26).

3. Similar results were found regardless of gender, with males (aOR 0.90, 95% CI 0.69-1.17) and women (aOR 0.96, 95% CI 0.71-1.29) showing no differences.

These findings show us the possibilities of gastrointestinal surgery going sideways leading to life threatening complications and shed fresh light on the possibility of getting psoriasis.

Reference:

Liu, Y., Zhuo, X., Hung, Y., Wang, Y., Chang, R., & Wei, J. C. (2023). Absence of an association between gastrointestinal tract surgery and newly diagnosed psoriasis: A nationwide, population‐based , nested, case‐control study. In International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1111/1756-185x.14750