Carotid artery intima-media thickness in psoriatic patients and its relation to severity and duration of the disease

Abstract

Objective The study was conducted to find out the relation between the severity and duration of psoriasis with carotid artery intima-media thickness in psoriatic patients.  Methods This descriptive type of cross-sectional study was conducted during the period of April 2016 to August 2017. Fifty psoriatic patients were enrolled through purposive sampling. History was taken, physical examination and necessary laboratory tests were done for each of the participants. Disease severity of each and every patient was measured by Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI). High-resolution B-mode ultrasonography with a linear array transducer and ultrasound frequencies 5–15 MHz was used to measure CIMT. All the data were recorded using predesigned questionnaire. Continuous data were expressed as the mean ± standard deviation (SD). Pearson correlation coefficient test was used to correlate between mean carotid intima-media thickness with continuous variable.  Results The mean age of the patients was 33.0±10.5 years and 74.0% patients were male. The mean duration of disease was 44.1±54.4 months, onset of disease was at the age of 28.4±10.6 years, the PASI was 14.4±10.1 and overall 10.0% of the patients had ≥0.9 mm (abnormal) CIMT. There was significant association between mean CIMT values and duration of disease (r= +0.587, p<0.001) and also significant positive correlation between mean CIMT with age (r= +0.460, p<0.001) but insignificant positive correlation between mean CIMT and PASI score (r = +0.045, p=0.756).  Conclusion Psoriatic patients had a relationship between increasing mean carotid artery intima-media thickness and duration of disease that may predict a higher risk of cardio­vascular diseases. So, all psoriatic patients should be advised to avoid traditional cardiovascular risk factors to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.