Epidemiological survey of patients with psoriasis in Matsumoto city, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

A local epidemiological survey of psoriasis was conducted from 19 February to 30 June 2016 in Matsumoto city, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Patients were predominantly male (268 cases, 71.5% males vs 107 cases, 28.5% females). We estimated that the prevalence of psoriasis was 0.097% in the Matsumoto area. The clinical types of psoriasis identified were psoriasis vulgaris (90.7%), psoriatic arthritis (5.9%), pustular psoriasis (2.1%), guttate psoriasis (1.0%) and psoriatic erythroderma (0.3%). The topical therapeutic agents included corticosteroids (84.0%), vitamin D₃ analogs (61.5%), and a combination of calcipotriol and betamethasone dipropionate (31.0%). Current systemic treatments included cyclosporin (9.0%), etretinate (7.4%) and methotrexate (1.3%). Biologic treatments included adalimumab (4.0%), ustekinumab (2.7%), infliximab (1.3%) and secukinumab (0.8%). Ultraviolet B therapy (11.3%) was the predominant phototherapy in which narrow band ultraviolet B therapy accounted for the majority, followed by psoralen and ultraviolet A therapy (1.0%). According to the recent evolution of psoriasis treatment, the use of biologics has been increasing. This study demonstrates the changes of treatment trends of psoriasis in a non-metropolitan regional area.

Keywords: Japan; epidemiology; examination; psoriasis; therapeutics.