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Greater likelihood of hypertension seen among patients with psoriasis

Psoriasis was associated with a greater incidence of uncontrolled hypertension among patients with psoriasis, with the greatest likelihood observed among those with moderate to severe psoriasis, according to study findings.

The population-based, cross-sectional study included 1,322 patients with psoriasis randomly selected from The Health Improvement Network and included in the Incident Health Outcomes and Psoriasis Events prospective cohort, along with 11,977 age-matched controls without psoriasis.

Junko Takeshita

All patients had a diagnosis of hypertension. The researchers defined uncontrolled hypertension as a systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher, or a diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher, based on the blood pressure recorded closest in time to the psoriasis severity assessment. Moderate to severe psoriasis was defined as cases where 3% or more of the body surface area was affected.

In patients with psoriasis and hypertension, the researchers found a significant positive dose-response relationship between uncontrolled hypertension and objective measures of psoriasis severity determined by the affected body surface area. This was found to be true in both unadjusted and adjusted analyses that controlled for age, sex, body mass index, smoking and alcohol use status, presence of comorbidities, and use of antihypertensive and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, according to the researchers.

The likelihood of uncontrolled hypertension was also increased overall among patients with psoriasis of any severity, but not statistically significantly so, according to the researchers.

Disclosure: See the study for a full list of all authors’ relevant financial disclosures.