Congenital psoriasis: case report and literature review

While childhood psoriasis is fairly common, congenital psoriasis appears to be rare and has not been well characterized. We present a patient with histologically confirmed congenital psoriasis. By reviewing the literature, we aim to both define this disease and compare it to infantile and childhood psoriasis. Electronic searches found articles reporting patients with biopsy-proven congenital psoriasis. We recorded clinical features, such as family history, anatomic involvement, and disease severity. We compared these data with previous descriptions of infantile and childhood psoriasis. We included nine patients with congenital psoriasis in our analysis. No patient had a first-degree family history of psoriasis. While the face, scalp, chest, and trunk were frequently involved, the buttocks generally were spared. Several patients had persistent disease despite therapy. In this series, congenital psoriasis differed from infantile and childhood psoriasis in several respects. Specifically, congenital psoriasis was associated with a lower prevalence of relevant family history, which could increase over time, and a different pattern of anatomic involvement, which may reflect exposure to age-associated environmental factors. Although several patients with congenital psoriasis had severe disease, this likely represents publication bias. Additional reports of congenital psoriasis with extended follow-up are needed to better characterize this condition.