Systemic Sclerosis is Linked to Psoriasis and May Impact on Patients' Survival: A Large Cohort Study

Although skin manifestations are quite common in systemic sclerosis (SSc), a link between SSc and psoriasis (PsO) has been poorly investigated. We assessed the Clalit medical database in a cohort study to compare the prevalence of PsO between SSc-patients and SSc-free controls. We also evaluated the SSc-related autoantibodies' role in the co-existence of the two conditions. Survival analysis was performed using both univariate (Kaplan-Meier, log-rank test) and multivariate (Cox proportional-hazards technique) analyses. Our cohort of 2,431 SSc-patients was age- and gender-matched with 12,710 controls (case-control match 1:5.2). There were 150 (1.2%) cases of PsO among controls and 47 (1.9%) among SSc-patients (p = 0.0027). A SSc diagnosis was an independent risk factor for PsO with an odds ratio (OR) of 2.16 (95%CI 1.38-3.39, p = 0.0008). Among SSc-patients, 98.6% with PsO were antinuclear antibodies (ANA)-negative. In terms of survival, the mortality rate in SSc-patients with PsO was lower than SSc without PsO (14.9% vs. 26%, p < 0.0001). At the multivariate-analysis, SSc-patients with PsO compared to SSc-patients without PsO had an OR for death of 0.44 (95%CI 0.19-0.99, p < 0.05). SSc is independently associated with PsO. The cases with concurrent PsO and SSc are almost exclusively ANA-negative and may exhibit a better survival.