title: Diagnosis and classification of psoriasis.
abstract: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory multi organ disease with well characterized pathology occurring in the skin and often the joints. Although the disease has many characteristic and even pathognomonic features, no established diagnostic criteria exist for cutaneous psoriasis and there is no unified classification for the clinical spectrum of the disease. Prior approaches that have been taken to classify psoriasis include age of onset, severity of the disease, and morphologic evaluation. The latter has yielded plaque, guttate, pustular, and erythrodermic as subtypes of psoriasis. Unlike other autoimmune diseases, histopathological examination and blood tests are generally not valuable tools in making the diagnosis of psoriasis. However, on occasion, dermatopathologic evaluation may be helpful in confirming the diagnosis of psoriasis. Thus, in most cases the diagnosis of psoriasis is dependent primarily on pattern recognition that is morphologic evaluation of skin lesions and joints.
authors.affiliation: VA Sacramento Medical Center, Department of Veterans Affairs, Northern California Health Care System, Mather, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Smriti K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Raychaudhuri
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Emanual
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Maverakis
authors.affiliation: VA Sacramento Medical Center, Department of Veterans Affairs, Northern California Health Care System, Mather, CA, United States of America; Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA, United States of America. Electronic address: sraychaudhuri@ucdavis.edu.
authors.forename: Siba P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Raychaudhuri
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002908:Chronic Disease; D006801:Humans; D007596:Joints / Q000473:pathology; D010641:Phenotype; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology
keywords: Clinical spectrum; Diagnosis; Diagnostic criteria; Psoriasis