Psoriatic Arthritis Appears More Severe Among Women

For women, but not men, being overweight is linked with higher psoriatic arthritis disease activity, suggests a study published in the journal Rheumatology.

Researchers in the Netherlands looked at practice data for 855 patients with psoriatic arthritis to ascertain differences in disease activity between sexes and any determinants associated with not reaching treatment targets for either sex.

Scores were worse for women across several disease measures, including swollen and tender joints, C-reactive protein, enthesitis, and function, according to the study. Women also had higher Psoriatic Arthritis Disease Activity Scores (PASDAS): an average 3.5 compared with an average 2.7 for men. The odds ratio for women not being at the PASDAS treatment target was 2.03.

In the overall sample of women and men, factors associated with not reaching the treatment target were nail disease, inflammatory back pain, number of past and current disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, and body mass index (BMI). When researchers separated women from men, BMI was associated with not reaching low disease activity on the PASDAS only for women.

“Women with psoriatic arthritis in a tightly monitored and treated setting have more severe disease than men,” researchers wrote. “This is demonstrated by worse scores for women in both subjective and objective disease activity measures, in addition to women less often reaching the treatment target.”

—Jolynn Tumolo

Reference:
Mulder MLM, Wenink MH, Vriezekolk JE. Being overweight is associated with not reaching low disease activity in women but not men with psoriatic arthritis. Rheumatology. 2022;61(2):770-774.