Causal Association Between Psoriasis and Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

Psoriasis and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) may share immune-related pathophysiologic characteristics. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between psoriasis and AMD. We assessed the possible causal link between psoriasis and AMD in European populations.

Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with psoriasis exposure were employed as instrumental variables (IVs) based on genome-wide significance (p < 5.0 × 10-8) in the FinnGen genome-wide association study (GWAS). The GWAS data for AMD were obtained from 11 studies performed by the International AMD Genomics Consortium. We performed a two-sample Mendelian randomisation (MR) study to estimate causal effects using the inverse-variance weighted, weighted median, and MR-Egger methods, as well as the MR-Pleiotropy Residual Sum and Outlier (MR-PRESSO) test.

We observed significant causal associations of psoriasis with AMD. Using the weighted median method, the odds ratio (OR) was 1.09 (95% CI = [1.03-1.16] and p = 0.005), and using the MR-PRESSO test, the OR was 1.04 (95% CI = [1.00-1.09] and p = 0.043).

A potential causal association between psoriasis and AMD underscores the need to investigate inflammation as a risk factor for AMD.