Psoriasis, a Systemic Disease?

Abstract

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease which is characterized by plaques with shiny white desquamation on the skin. It affects 1 to 3% of different ethnic populations. The disease significantly lowers the quality of life for the patients as the lesions appear on visible regions such as the scalp, face and extremities causing pruritus and extensive use of topical agents with a poor rate of recovery and the disease has a recurrent course with frequent attacks. Psoriasis was previously assumed to be a cutaneous disease resulting from epidermal cell hyperproliferation for a long time. However, studies conducted on the etiopathogenesis of the disease revealed that psoriasis is a chronic autoinflammatory disease which is caused by immune system dysregulation. Recently, the frequent association of psoriasis with other autoinflammatory diseases, comorbidities and complications which indeed shorten life expectancy concluded that psoriasis is a systemic disease and created a major difference in its treatment and follow-up modalities. In this review, the comorbidities, which are shown to be related to systemic inflammation and which also share a common pathogenesis with psoriasis, will be discussed. (Turk J Dermatol 2012; 6: 119-22)