Patient-reported Impact of Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy on Psoriasis

Menopause's impact on psoriasis remains unclear. This study's aim was to gather information on patient perception of the impact of menopause and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on psoriasis. This survey-based study analysed 139 postmenopausal women with psoriasis from the USA and South Korea. In the combined cohort, most women reported menopause either had no effect on their psoriasis (41.7%) or worsened their psoriasis (33.1%). In the combined cohort, a majority of women (73.4%) reported that there was no change in their psoriasis treatment with menopause. Of the women receiving HRT (n = 29), the majority reported no effect on psoriasis (62.1%). In multivariate analysis, alcohol consumption was protective against worsening of psoriasis with menopause (OR 0.19 [95% CI 0.06-0.59], p = 0.004). In summary, this study showed that menopause is likely to have a neutral to negative effect on psoriasis. HRT was found to have no effect on the course of psoriasis in the majority of cases.