Association between psoriasis and asthma: a population-based retrospective cohort analysis.
BACKGROUND
Both psoriasis and asthma are chronic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the risk of developing asthma in patients with psoriasis compared with controls.


METHODS
This cohort study was conducted using data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Patients with psoriasis (n = 10,288) and matched comparison patients without psoriasis (n = 41,152) were evaluated. A Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was used to determine the risk of asthma in patients with and without psoriasis.


RESULTS
The risk of asthma was 1·38-fold higher [95% confidence interval (CI) 1·23-1·54] in the cohort with psoriasis than in the reference cohort, after adjusting for age, sex and comorbidities. The incidence of asthma in men and women with psoriasis exhibited nonsignificant differences. Among all patients aged > 50 years, psoriasis was associated with a higher risk of asthma compared with not having psoriasis [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1·49; 95% CI 1·18-1·88 (in patients aged 50-64 years); adjusted HR 1·63; 95% CI 1·34-1·99 (in patients aged > 65 years)].


CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that patients with psoriasis are associated with a increased risk of developing asthma.
Department of Dermatology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
H-Y
HY
Fang
W-C
WC
Liao
C-L
CL
Lin
C-H
CH
Chen
C-H
CH
Kao
D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology