is psoriasis an autoimmune disease?

psoriasis is a chronic, inflammatory and proliferative skin disease that has a wide distribution throughout the world. the immune system plays a critical role in developing this disease. in this survey, we have studied 50 patients suffering from psoriasis and 50 control subjects for various immunological factors, simultaneously. anti-stratum corneum (sc) antibody was evaluated by immunofluorescent technique that showed a high significant level of it in patients (p<0.005). the titer of immunoglobulins (igg, m, and a) measured by radial-immunodiffusion (rid) method was also higher in normal population. cic estimated by peg precipitating technique demonstrated high concentration in patients. tnf, a cytokine with strong performance to induce inflammation, had no significant rising amount in patient sera, but in synovial fluid in psoriasis arthritis may have higher levels. we discuss that due to immunological findings we consider that psoriasis is probably as an autoimmune disorder. the prevention, treatment and prognosis of the disease may follow the same procedures as other autoimmune diseases and further investigation will be helpful to achieve the above goal