Psoriasis and cigarette smoking.

Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease, whose prevalence in population is connected with interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Clinical observations indicate that cigarette smoking is an important environmental factor exacerbating the course of the disease and provoking its consecutive relapses. The harmful influence of smoking is connected with inducing of inflammatory mediators taking part in pathogenic phenomena in the skin of psoriatic patients. Psoriasis is observed more frequently in smokers than in general population. Vast spread of the smoking habit among the psoriatic patients can be related to the lowered quality of life due to the emotional problems and difficulties in the family and social life caused by the chronic disease.