Alcohol Related Deaths Increased in Psoriasis Save

JAMA Dermatology has published a report showing psoriasis carries a 60% greater risk alcohol-related death compared with those without psoriasis. (Citation source: https://buff.ly/2galDwr)

Using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) linked to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and the Office for National Statistics mortality records, researchers compared 55,537 psoriasis patients with a matched comparison cohort (n=854,314) and examined outcomes.

Psoriasis patients were more likely to be heavy drinkers (9.3%) vs the comparison cohort (7.0%). Those with psoriasis who died from alcohol-related causes were much likely to be younger by 3 to 5 years.

Over a 4.4 years of follow-up period they found 152 alcohol-related deaths occurred in the psoriasis cohort and 1,118 in the comparison cohort.  This translates to a rate of alcohol-related deaths of 4.8 per 10,000 person-years in psoriasis patients and  only 2.5 per 10,000 person-years in the comparison cohort. This translates to an increased risk with a hazard ratio of 1.58 (95% CI, 1.31-1.91) for alcohol-related death in patients with psoriasis.

.The causes of death were alcoholic liver disease (65.1%), fibrosis and cirrhosis of the liver (23.7%), and mental and behavioral disorders due to alcohol (7.9%); accounting for 97% of the 152 alcohol related deaths with psoriasis.