People encouraged to take part in breakthrough skin psoriasis study
SIR,
Following my correspondence last February, I write to update readers on the launch of the ground-breaking HPOS study to detect early signs of arthritis, known as psoriatic arthritis, in people with skin psoriasis.
Since our announcement, our team of researchers has found that, of the first 1,500 participants in the study who have completed a screening tool for arthritis, one in four (25 per cent) have symptoms of possible arthritis, warranting referral to their GP.
While these participants would previously have been diagnosed as having psoriasis, they were unaware of potentially having psoriatic arthritis as well.
Psoriasis is a skin condition that affects more than 73,000 people across Ireland, causing scaly and itchy pink/red patches on the skin.
For one-third of patients, psoriasis can predispose them to developing the associated condition, psoriatic arthritis.
Symptoms can include joint pain, swelling of the fingers and toes, back pain, and stiffness and pain where ligaments are attached to bones such as the heels. Unless detected and treated early, psoriatic arthritis can result in significant joint damage and disability.
With this ongoing research, we are hoping to identify those features which will predict which patients with skin psoriasis will develop psoriatic arthritis, even before there are any obvious symptoms.
In this way, with early intervention, we hope to prevent irreversible joint damage before it occurs.
I’d like to take this opportunity to let readers know that the study continues to recruit people with skin psoriasis, who are 18 years’ old or more, and who do not have a diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis. Registration is open at www.hpos.study. Sincerely,
Prof. Oliver FitzGerald, Consultant Rheumatologist,
UCD.
Dublin.