Among patients with psoriasis, the risk of mortality was strongly associated with hepatic injury, cardiovascular disease, and psychiatric affective disorders but was reduced among those who received systemic therapy with biologics, researchers from Canada report.
Those are key findings from a large retrospective registry study of patients with psoriasis, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
"Psoriasis, a chronic inflammatory condition affecting approximately 3% of the western populations, bears a higher risk of mortality compared to healthy individuals, possibly by inducing systemic inflammation associated with numerous comorbidities, especially cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, and others," wrote corresponding author Robert Gniadecki, MD, PhD, of the Division of Dermatology at the University of Alberta, Canada, and colleagues. "It has been argued that the use of systemic immunomodulatory agents quenches systemic inflammation and potentially improves patient survival. However, the evidence to support this hypothesis is limited."
To investigate the impact of comorbidities and systemic therapies on all-cause mortality in psoriasis, the researchers used the Alberta Health Services Data Repository of Reporting database from January 1, 2012, to June 1, 2019, which represents a population base of 4.47 million individuals. They extracted data on 18,618 psoriasis cases and 55,854 controls, stratified cases according to the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), a surrogate measure for comorbidity burden, and by the type of therapy received, and conducted statistical analyses including Cox proportional hazards regression to determine absolute hazard ratios representing relative effects of specific demographic and comorbidity factors on mortality within groups.
The median age in both cohorts was 48 years, and 51% were male. The researchers observed that mortality in the psoriasis cohort was significantly higher than in the controls (5.7% vs 3.8%, respectively; P < .05), with a median age at the time of death of 72 vs 74.4 years.
The CCI and comorbidities strongly predicted mortality, especially drug-induced liver injury (hazard ratio [HR], 1.78), bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation (HR, 1.24-1.58), and major cardiovascular diseases, which included myocardial infarction (MI), congestive heart failure (CHF), and cerebrovascular disease (CVA) (HR, 1.2-1.4).
Among patients in the psoriasis cohort, survival of those treated with biologic agents was higher than in controls, even after matching for CCI (3.2% vs 4.4%, respectively; P < .05). "These patients also exhibit reduced overall mortality compared to those treated with methotrexate or topical agents," Dr Gniadecki and colleagues wrote. "There was no difference in mortality between methotrexate patients and the topical therapy patients, but any of those treatment groups had superior survival compared to the no-treatment cohort."
They added that despite better survival among patients treated with biologic agents, no significant improvements were detected in their comorbidity profiles. "Notably, the frequency of major cardiovascular disease (MI, CHF, CVA) was the same as in the controls, and overall, the frequency of diseases coded as cardiovascular was slightly increased," they wrote.
The fact that some factors could not be measured, including the type and severity of psoriasis, response to treatment, smoking history, and alcohol intake, was a study limitation, they noted.
Joel M. Gelfand, MD, director of the psoriasis and phototherapy treatment center at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, who was asked to comment on the analysis, said the study confirms prior work indicating that having psoriasis is a predictor of mortality. In addition, "there is a strong healthy user affect among patients who take and stay on biologics for psoriasis," he told this news organization.
"The results are encouraging but are not able to establish a causal relationship between treating psoriasis with biologics and lowering mortality risk. Ultimately, randomized comparative trials will be needed to determine which approach or approaches to treating psoriasis, if any, lower the risk of psoriatic arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and mortality," said Dr Gelfand, who was not involved with the study.
Asked to comment on the results, Adam Friedman, MD, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington University, Washington, who was not involved with the study, said that "data such as these enable us to rationalize the cost of our fleet of biologics, as managing the outpatient/inpatient burden of many of these comorbidities will actually drain the healthcare system, more so than managing psoriasis in the first place. Certainly other interventions to address the well-known comorbidities, such as cardiovascular and hepatic, are warranted, but what if you could prevent the problem in the first place? To be continued for that answer."
The study was funded by Canadian Dermatology Foundation, Alberta Innovates, and by a Health Sciences TD Bank Studentship Award. Dr Gniadecki reported conducting clinical trials for Bausch Health, AbbVie and Janssen, and he has received honoraria as consultant and/or speaker from AbbVie, Bausch Health, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Mallinckrodt, Novartis, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma and Sanofi. The other authors had no disclosures. Dr Gelfand reported serving as a consultant for AbbVie, Artax, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, and other companies. He is on the board of directors for the International Psoriasis Council and the Medical Dermatology Society. Dr Friedman disclosed that he is a speaker for Janssen and Bristol Myers Squibb. He has received grants from Janssen, Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Lilly and has served as an advisor for Arcutis, Dermavant, and Janssen.
This article originally appeared on MDedge.com, part of the Medscape Professional Network.