To determine whether the presence of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is associated with greater comorbidity, in particular cardiovascular morbidity, compared to psoriasis without arthritis.
Six hundred eleven patients with PsA were recruited from the University of Toronto Psoriatic Arthritis Clinic and 449 psoriasis without arthritis patients were recruited from the University of Toronto Psoriasis Cohort. The clinical database was used to identify the prevalence of cardiovascular and other comorbidities in both PsA and psoriasis without arthritis patients. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to estimate odds ratios (ORs), comparing the odds of ever having a given comorbid disease in PsA patients with those in psoriasis without arthritis patients. Covariates included age, sex, education, smoking status, severity and duration of psoriasis, medication status, and other comorbidities.
The prevalence of hypertension, obesity, hyperlipidemia, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and at least 1 cardiovascular event in PsA patients was 37.1%, 30.0%, 20.7%, 12.0%, and 8.2%, respectively. This was significantly higher than in psoriasis without arthritis patients, with unadjusted ORs ranging from 1.54 to 2.59. In the multivariate analyses, hypertension remained significantly elevated (adjusted OR 2.17). PsA was also significantly associated with infections not treated with antibiotics (presumably viral), neurologic conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, and liver disease (adjusted ORs 2.83, 4.76, 21.53, and 7.74, respectively). Infections treated with antibiotics and depression/anxiety were relatively common in PsA, with a prevalence of 30.5% and 20.7%, respectively. However, this was not significantly different from psoriasis without arthritis after multivariate adjustments.
The results suggest that inflammatory joint disease may play a role in both cardiovascular and noncardiovascular morbidity in PsA.