Psoriasis associated with increased risk of autoimmune diseases

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory systemic disease. Several studies report an association of psoriasis with arthritis, depression, inflammatory bowel disease and cardiovascular diseases. Recently, several other comorbid conditions have been proposed as related to the chronic inflammatory status of psoriasis.

However there are limited large population-based cohort studies on the risk of incident autoimmune diseases among patients with newly diagnosed psoriatic disease. To find evidence on the same a team of researchers conducted a nationwide study. The findings are published in Scientific reports.

The study found that Patients with newly diagnosed psoriatic disease may be at a significantly higher risk of developing incident autoimmune diseases.

Researchers used the Korean National Health Insurance Service database, patients with newly diagnosed psoriatic disease between 2007 and 2019 were included. Comparators were randomly selected and matched according to age and sex.

The key findings of the study are

• A total of 321,354 patients with psoriatic disease and 321,354 matched comparators were included in this study.

• Patients with psoriatic disease had a significantly higher risk of Crohn's disease [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR), 1.95; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.42-2.67], ulcerative colitis (aHR, 1.65; 95% CI 1.39-1.96), systemic lupus erythematosus (aHR, 1.86; 95% CI 1.34-2.57).

• Rheumatoid arthritis (aHR, 1.63; 95% CI 1.52-1.76), ankylosing spondylitis (aHR, 2.32; 95% CI 1.95-2.77), alopecia areata (aHR, 1.41; 95% CI 1.35-1.46), and type 1 diabetes (aHR, 1.23; 95% CI 1.11-1.37).

• However, the risk of Graves' disease, Hashimoto's disease, Sjögren's syndrome, and systemic sclerosis was not significantly different between the groups.

Researchers concluded that “Patients with newly diagnosed psoriatic disease may have a significantly increased risk of incident autoimmune diseases.”

Reference: Jung JM, Kim YJ, Lee WJ, Won CH, Lee MW, Chang SE. Risk of incident autoimmune diseases in patients with newly diagnosed psoriatic disease: a nationwide population-based study. Sci Rep. 2023;13(1):16738. Published 2023 Oct 5. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-43778-4.