Psoriatic arthritis epidemiology

Abstract

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a chronic inflammatory arthritis that can cause severe joint deformities and disability. The expected prevalence of inflammatory arthritis among patients with psoriasis has varied from 7% to 40%. Early diagnosis and treatment of PsA is recommended to discourage from disease associated disability and breakdown of work place efficiency. The epidemiological studies are quite limited because of small and selective study populations, limited follow-up, and absence of validated PsA classification criteria. The epidemiology of psoriatic arthritis has been reviewed in this manuscript by summarizing incidence and prevalence estimates up to date and epidemiological studies indicating the degree of genetic load of PsA. Potential risk factors like demographic features, characteristics of psoriasis lesions and the effect of environmental and hormonal factors in epidemiological spectrum of psoriatic arthritis are analyzed.