Nail involvement in psoriatic patients and NAPSI-PASI correlation

Abstract

Objective: Our aim is to investigate the nail involvement, NAPSI scores and prospectively analyze the correlation of these scores with PASI scores in psoriatic patients. Material and Methods: Seventy-two patients with psoriasis were in enrolled in our study. The severity of nail involvement were scored and calculated with NAPSI system. To find the NAPSI score, each finding in every quadrant of the nails was rated. We have also recorded the severity of skin lesions by using PASI scoring system by the same physician, in the same day. We have also evaluated the information for the treatment, age, sex and disease duration of patients. Results: The frequency of psoriasis and nail involvement according to sex and age was not found statistically significant. We didn't found a relation between the type of psoriasis and psoriatic nail involvement, either. Similarly, there was no correlation between the type of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis existence. As the disease duration increase the frequency of nail involvement elevated (100/145 months), but this increase was not statistically significant. The average NAPSI score detected for hand-nails was 16.8 ± 20.2, and for toe-nails 13.3 ± 18.0. The average PASI score was significantly higher in the case of arthritis. There was a moderate correlation between the nail involvement that was calculated with NAPSI and PASI scores. Conclusion: As a result, we shown that the nail involvement is a frequent finding in psoriasis patients especially with arthritis and the severity of nail involvement is in correlation with the severity of skin lesions. Copyright © 2010 by Türkiye Klinikleri.