Prevalence of Oral Lesions in Patients with Psoriasis

Abstract

Background: Psoriasis is a common chronic inflammatory condition that affects mainly skin and joints which has a genetic and immunological background with unknown etiology. Objective: To determine the prevalence of oral findings and possible association with disease severity in psoriatic patients attending the Erbil Dermatology Teaching Center in Erbil city, Kurdistan Region-Iraq.

Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 cases of psoriasis attending Erbil Dermatology Teaching Center in Erbil city, Kurdistan Region-Iraq. Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) scored was used for each patient and all participants were examined for observing oral lesions. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, version25) was used for analyzing the data. Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact tests were applied as descriptive statistics tests. A p-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: Among the 120 cases, 50 cases were males and 70 were females, their mean age ± SD was 30.24 ± 14.82 years, and the age range was 6-65 years. Oral lesions were detected in 50 (41.7%) cases, and the most common oral findings were fissured tongue 39 (32.5%) cases and geographic tongue 5 (4.2%). The Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) score for the majority of the cases were mild and the oral manifestations were strongly associated with the disease severity (p = 0.001).

Conclusion: Both fissured tongue and geographic tongue are the two most frequent oral findings in psoriatic patients in this study, the prevalence of these findings increased with the disease severity. Routine examinations of the oral cavity are necessary for all  psoriatic patients.