Patients with psoriasis may have higher mortality rate than general population
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Patients with psoriasis in the United States may have double the risk of mortality than those who do not have the disease, according to a study.
“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,” Yevgeniy R. Semenov, MD, MA, of the division of dermatology at Washington University School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “Previous population-based studies in Europe reported an increased risk of mortality in individuals with psoriasis. The majority of these studies found a significantly increased risk of cause-specific and all-cause mortality for moderate to severe psoriasis.”
Semenov and colleagues conducted a retrospective population-based cohort study of 13,031 U.S. subjects who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Researchers then used data from the Social Security Administration, CMS, National Center for Health Statistics and National Demographic Institute to determine mortality data.
Psoriasis was present in 347 participants (2.7%). They had higher history rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (12.2% vs. 5.5%, P < .001), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (12.2% vs. 5.9%, P < .001), cancer (13.6% vs. 6.5%, P < .001) and smoking (59.7% vs. 45.2%, P < .001).
Twelve of 16 deaths reported in those with psoriasis were caused by cancer, CVD or pneumonia. In addition, those with psoriasis had a significantly higher age-adjusted mortality rate per 1,000 patient years due to cancer (3.633 vs. 1.371, P = .031) and pneumonia (1.164 vs. 0.108, P = .004). The age-adjusted CVD mortality rate was not statistically significant (2.364 vs. 1.087).
“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.