Psoriasis is a common, chronic, inflammatory, multisystem disease with predominantly skin and joint manifestations affecting approximately 2% of the population. In this second of 5 sections of the guidelines of care for psoriasis, we give an overview of psoriatic arthritis including its cardinal clinical features, pathogenesis, prognosis, classification, assessment tools used to evaluate psoria...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate an existing tool (the Swedish modification of the Psoriasis Assessment Questionnaire) and to develop a new instrument to screen for psoriatic arthritis in people with psoriasis. DESIGN The starting point was a community-based survey of people with psoriasis using questionnaires developed from the literature. Selected respondents were examined and additional known cases o...

Psoriatic arthritis is a multigenic autoimmune disease that involves synovial tissue, entheseal sites and skin, and that may result in significant joint damage. Although there are no diagnostic tests for psoriatic arthritis, research has identified consistent features that help to distinguish the condition from other common rheumatic diseases. Comparison of HLA-B and HLA-C regions in psoriatic ...

Several tools have been introduced in clinical trials to quantify the severity and the response to a given therapeutic regimen of both psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Each method present specific advantages and limitations. Here we will discuss some of the most popular clinical outcome measures of both psoriasis (Psoriasis Severity Index, Physician Global Assessment, National Psoriasis Funda...

OBJECTIVES To assess, using standardised patients (SPs), how rheumatologists diagnose psoriatic arthritis, whether the diagnostic efficiency is influenced by specific characteristics of the rheumatologists, and to study the relationship with costs. METHODS Twenty three rheumatologists were each visited by one of two SPs (one male, one female) presenting as a patient with psoriatic arthritis. ...

Psoriatic arthritis has now gained general acceptance as an entity distinct from rheumatoid disease (Garrod and Evans, 1924; McEwen, Ziff, Carmel, DiTata, and Tanner, 1958; Wright, 1961). Distal interphalangeal joint involvement is a prominent feature of psoriatic arthritis (Avila, Pugh, Slocumb, and Winkelmann, 1960; Bauer, Bennett, and Zeller, 1941; Sherman, 1952), but not of rheumatoid arthr...

Psoriasis is commonly associated with a co-existent arthritis known as psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Although there is some treatment overlap for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, it is possible that dermatologists may not diagnose or treat appropriately patients who are developing psoriatic arthritis at an early stage of the disease process when joint damage may be preventable. In this article w...

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a heterogeneous disease that can involve a variety of distinct anatomical sites including a patient's peripheral and axial joints, entheses, skin and nails. Appropriate management of PsA requires early diagnosis, monitoring of disease activity, and utilization of cutting edge therapies. To accomplish the former there are a variety of PsA-specific tools available to ...

Echocardiographic early diastolic abnormalities have been shown recently in 50% of men with ankylosing spondylitis. Similar techniques were used to investigate subjects with rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis with or without spondylitis. These subjects had no clinical, radiographic, or electrocardiographic evidence of cardiac or respiratory disease. Echocardiographic abnormalities see...

To identify diagnostic markers of psoriasis vulgaris and psoriatic arthritis, autoantibodies in sera from patients with psoriasis were screened by two-dimensional immunoblotting (2D-IB). We previously found 22 autoantigens each in psoriasis sera. In this study, serum levels of valosin-containing protein (VCP) in patients, one of the identified autoantigens in psoriasis patients, were studied by...