Unpacking the Complexity of Psoriatic Arthritis

Announcer:

You’re listening to Living Rheum on ReachMD. On this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Lawrence H. Brent, who’s a Professor of Medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia. He’ll be discussing the heterogeneity of psoriatic arthritis.

Let’s hear from Dr. Brent now.

Dr. Brent:

Psoriatic arthritis has a number of different forms. That was described back in the early 1970s. Before that, it was thought to be a variant of rheumatoid arthritis. So there are patients that present with mostly arthritis in the hands and wrist; they look a little bit like rheumatoid arthritis. But then there are patients who have a more limited involvement of joints. So it's one finger on one side, a wrist on the other side. Then we have patients that have very destructive arthritis, where the hands and the feet, especially, get deformed. We have patients who, most of their involvement is in the end joints in the fingers called the DIP joints.

And then we have patients who have spinal involvement. Now, some patients who have arthritis in the peripheral joints, like the arms and legs, may also have spinal disease. So that's where this term heterogeneity comes from.

And then, in addition to that, there are patients who have psoriasis, but it could be very mild. They could be very severe. They may also have inflammatory eye disease like uveitis, and maybe even inflammatory bowel disease. So when you look at all these moving parts, you can see how these patients may present in many different ways.

Announcer:

That was Dr. Lawrence H. Brent talking about the heterogeneous presentations of psoriatic arthritis. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Living Rheum on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!