[Prevalence of thyroid abnormalities among psoriatic patients].

INTRODUCTION: Psoriasis is a chronic papulosquamous cutaneous disease. The etiology is unknown. Several biochemical and immunological processes, which appear in patients with genetic predisposition, lead to enhanced proliferation of epidermal cells, and inflammation of the dermis. Thyroid gland hormones cause an increase of epidermal growth factor level, which has an important role in keratinocyte proliferation, which may be involved in psoriasis disease.
METHODS: In this study, we have prospectively examined the function of thyroid gland hormones--TSH, T3, T4, anti-TPO and antithyroglobulin--in 100 psoriatic patients. This database was compared with a control group of 54 patients, without known thyroid gland abnormalities, who were randomly chosen from the endocrinology clinic's medical records.
RESULTS: In the psoriatic patients, an increase in the anti-TPO levels was demonstrated in 9 psoriatic patients (9%), compared to 3 patients in the control group (5.6%). An increase of anti-TG was demonstrated in 3 psoriatic patients (3%) compared to one patient (1.8%) in the control group. An increase of TSH levels was demonstrated in 5 psoriatic patients (5%) compared to 3 patients (5.6%) in the control group. T3 levels were abnormal in 3 psoriatic patients, and T4 levels were abnormal in 2 psoriatic patients, while the T3 and T4 levels in the control group patients were normal.
CONCLUSIONS: In our study we didn't observe a statistical difference in the thyroid gland functions between the psoriatic and the control patients. We have observed that in patients with severe psoriasis, there were increased TSH levels and positive auto-antibodies titer compared to patients with mild psoriasis.
SUMMARY: The clinical characteristics of the psoriatic patients were connected to the function of the thyroid gland. Nonetheless, the number of patients was low, and more studies are needed to confirm this relationship.