Sometimes when we diagnose a patient with psoriatic arthritis, he or she will tell us they don’t have any psoriasis of the skin. The question here is: Do all patients with psoriatic arthritis have to have psoriasis of the skin or the scalp or the nails?
The word "psoriasis" in medicine is commonly relates to an autoimmune disease of the skin called "skin psoriasis" that affects either the skin itself or the scalp or the nails. However, psoriasis in medicine is actually also related to that autoimmune of the joints that is called "psoriatic arthritis".
Seventy percent of the patients that we, rheumatologists, see in our clinics who have psoriatic arthritis also have a diagnosis of psoriasis of the skin or the scalp or the nails.
A smaller percent of patients with psoriatic arthritis do not report that they ever had a diagnosis of psoriasis of the skin, but we discover that they do have psoriasis of the skin when we examine them; very mild lesions that were missed and not diagnosed.
A smaller percent of patients that we diagnose as psoriatic arthritis do not have a diagnosis of psoriasis and do not have any evidence of psoriasis when we examine them. They might develop psoriasis of the skin later on maybe or they might never develop this.
In all cases you need to know that when we, rheumatologists, diagnose psoriatic arthritis, we do not base our diagnosis on a mandatory presence of skin psoriasis. We base the diagnosis on other criteria that are related to the pattern of the arthritis and on features of the arthritis that are specific to psoriatic arthritis regardless of any skin affection.
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This post was prepared and published by Dr. Hatem Eleishi. Dr. Hatem Eleishi is a professor of rheumatology at Cairo university (Egypt) and is especially dedicated to supporting arthritis patients with online educational videos and articles about arthritis causes and treatment. He also runs a rheumatology clinic in Cairo and a center for www.tabibakom.com/en that, in addition to providing online rheumatology consultations, also provides online medical consultations in several different medical specialties by expert consultants from Egypt, Canada and the United States.
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