Epidemiology of Psoriasis in Hard-to-treat Body Locations: Data from the Danish Skin Cohort

Overview

Journal BMC Dermatol

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Dermatology

Date 2020 May 22

PMID 32434510

Citations 23

Authors

Alexander Egeberg

Kyoungah See

Alyssa Garrelts

Russel Burge

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Having psoriasis in hard-to-treat areas, i.e. the scalp, face, palms, soles, nails, and genitals, respectively, can impair patients' quality of life. We investigated the prevalence of hard-to-treat body locations of psoriasis, and described patients' clinical and demographic characteristics, and quality of life impacts in a population-based cohort.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study using a total of 4016 adults (≥18 years) with psoriasis from the Danish Skin Cohort. Groups were compared to patients without involvement of hard-to-treat areas.

Results: The most frequently affected hard-to-treat area was the scalp (43.0%), followed by the face (29.9%), nails (24.5%), soles (15.6%), genitals (14.1%), and palms (13.7%), respectively. Higher prevalence was generally seen with increasing psoriasis severity. Among all patients 64.8, 42.4, and 21.9% of patients had involvement of ≥1, ≥2, or ≥ 3 hard-to-treat areas. Those with involvement of certain hard-to-treat areas such as hands, feet, and genitals had clinically relevant DLQI impairments. Having involvement of one hard-to-treat area was significantly associated with other hard-to-treat areas affected even after adjusting for age, sex, and psoriasis severity.

Conclusion: Psoriasis commonly affects hard-to-treat locations, even in patients with mild disease. For some of these areas, patient-reported disease burden, e.g. as measured by DLQI, is impaired.

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