[Qualitative and quantitative investigations of the skin nerves of patients with psoriasis light- and electronmicroscopical study (author's transl)].

This study was aimed at investigating the role of the nerves in the pathomechanism of psoriasis. The structure of skin nerves of 10 patients with active psoriasis and of 6 healthy control persons has been studied by means of the microscope and the electron-microscope. Eight of the patients were subjected to punch biopsies of psoritatic plaques as well as clinically normal skin. No qualitative difference could be detected between the skin nerves from psoriatic patients and from healthy persons. Quantitative investigations showed that the density of myelinated and unmyelinated axons in psoriatic skin nerves did not differ from that in normal skin nerves in a statistically significant degree. This means that the ratio of myelinated to unmyelinated axons was alike in both normal and psoriatic skin nerves. Also the diameter distribution of myelinated and unmyelinated axons was similar. The difference in the degree of myelinisation and in the myelinperiodicity between psoriatic and control skin was not statistically significant. Neither qualitative nor quantitative morphologic alterations in the skin nerves of psoriatic persons could be detected.