[Psoriasis: development and fatal complications]

In a retrospective study we tried to evaluate the number of severe psoriasis with a lethal outcome observed in France in a 20-year period from 1965 to 1985. Among 992 psoriatic in-patients on care during this period in the Dermatology Clinic of Strasbourg, 7 died of different complications directly related to the skin disease or its therapy; 39 further cases could be gathered through different departments of dermatology of France. Patients who died had generalized psoriasis (13 cases), psoriatic erythroderma (15 cases) and generalized pustular psoriasis (18 cases); 18 (39 p. 100) also had psoriatic polyarthritis. Circumstances leading to death (table I) were metabolic disorders, related to erythroderma in most cases, non-specific complications (infections, amyloidosis) or complications of specific treatments (methotrexate, etretinate, corticosteroids, mechlorethamine). A comprehensive review of the literature over a century showed that only 72 lethal psoriasis cases have been reported: this rather low number may be due to the fact that some rare pathologies, such as visceral amyloidosis (12 cases) (table III) and fatal complications of methotrexate therapy (38 cases) (table V), paradoxically are more often published than non-specific complications occurring in severe psoriasis, such as cardiovascular failure or cachexy in erythrodermic patients. However, the review of the literature shows, as our own inquiry, the poor prognosis of generalized pustular forms and of psoriasis-associated polyarthropathies: among 42 lethal cases where enough data were available, 23 (55 p. 100) had psoriatic polyarthritis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)