Prologue: 2009 Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA)

The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) was held in June 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden, and was attended by rheumatologists, dermatologists, biopharmaceutical company representatives, and patient groups. A primary goal of GRAPPA is to foster outreach and interdisciplinary communication between the fields of rheumatology and dermatology. Several members attended an adjacent meeting of the International Federation of Psoriasis Associations; reports were also provided of recent meetings of the American Academy of Dermatology and the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis (ASAS) working group. In a training session of the GRAPPA meeting, members served as faculty while rheumatology fellows and dermatology residents presented original research work. In one module of the meeting, several response measures were discussed. In another module, discussions were held on the need for dermatologists to be able to diagnose psoriatic arthritis (PsA) among their psoriasis patients; several PsA screening questionnaires were presented, and progress was reported on developing online training videos as an aid to educate clinicians in their diagnoses. Other topics for discussion at the GRAPPA meeting included presentations on genetic associations with PsA and on comorbidities in patients with PsA. Current and future research projects also were outlined.