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. 2016 Jul 28;11(7):e0160041.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0160041. eCollection 2016.

The Risk of Chronic Pancreatitis in Patients with Psoriasis: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Hsien-Yi Chiu  1   2   3 , Chi-Feng Hsieh  4 , Yi-Ting Chiang  4 , Weng-Foung Huang  4 , Tsen-Fang Tsai  3
Affiliations

The Risk of Chronic Pancreatitis in Patients with Psoriasis: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Hsien-Yi Chiu et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Psoriasis is a chronic systemic inflammatory disorder, and studies have revealed its association with a variety of comorbidities. However, the risk of chronic pancreatitis (CP) in psoriasis has not been studied. This study aimed to investigate the risk of CP among patients with psoriasis.

Methods: Using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database, this population-based cohort study enrolled 48430 patients with psoriasis and 193720 subjects without psoriasis. Stratified Cox proportional hazards models were used to compare the risks of CP between the patients with and without psoriasis.

Results: The incidence of CP was 0.61 per 1000 person-years in patients with psoriasis and 0.34 per 1000 person-years in controls during a mean 6.6-year follow-up period. Before adjustment, patients with psoriasis had a significantly higher risk of CP (crude hazard ratio (HR) = 1.81; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.53-2.15), and the risk remained significantly higher after adjustments for gender, age group, medications, and comorbidities (adjusted HR (aHR) = 1.76; 95% CI = 1.47-2.10). All psoriasis patient subgroups other than those with arthritis, including those with mild and severe psoriasis and those without arthritis, had significantly increased aHRs for CP, and the risk increased with increasing psoriasis severity. Psoriasis patients taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (aHR = 0.33; 95% CI = 0.22-0.49) and methotrexate (aHR = 0.28; 95% CI = 0.12-0.64) had a lower risk of developing CP after adjustments.

Conclusions: Psoriasis is associated with a significantly increased risk of CP. The results of our study call for more research to provide additional insight into the relationship between psoriasis and CP.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: Dr. Tsen-Fang Tsai has conducted clinical trials or received honoraria for serving as a consultant for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Serono International SA (now Merck Serono International), UniPharma/Biogen Idec, Galderma, Celgene, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and Janssen-Cilag Pharmaceutical, and has received speaking fees from AbbVie. Dr. Chiu has received speaking fees from AbbVie, Janssen-Cilag Pharmaceutical, and Pfizer. CFH, YTC, and WFH have no conflicts of interest to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flowchart.
Selection of the study population.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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