Reduced Vitamin D Levels in Psoriasis

Take Home Massage: Blood Vitamin D levels are reduced in psoriasis, particularly in the pustular psoriasis and psoriatric erythroderma forms (study from Vietnam). The levels were lower in females than in males.

Comments:

-Compared with healthy volunteers, blood levels were significantly reduced in psoriasis patients. (prospective study)(the difference is around 18% but sometimes the values overlap with the control group)…so a bigger study in several geographic areas would be able to confirm the  trend

-Vitamin D levels were much lower in rarer forms of psoriasis than in plaque psoriasis. There was NO relation between the severity of plaque type Psoriasis and Vitamin D levels.

-Reduced levels of Vitamin D in Psoriasis mean there could be therapeutical implications. Pustular psoriasis responds quite poorly to topical steroids, and it could be interesting to see if acitretin would have an incidence on systemic vitamin D levels

-To read all of our articles on Vitamin D: click HERE 

-To read more on psoriasis: click HERE 

Abstract

Background: Topical vitamin D has been used to treat psoriasis with remarkable success. Although there are few studies of oral vitamin D treatment on psoriasis, dermatologists at Dermatology Hospital Ho Chi Minh City and other authors have been applying this treatment for pustular psoriasis.

Objective: To measure serum vitamin D levels of psoriatic patients and find out the relation of these concentration and characteristics of the disease.

Method: Psoriatic patients and healthy groups were matched in sex and age. Diagnosis was obtained by clinical examination. Severity of disease was assessed by using PASI index. Serum vitamin D was measured by using electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA) method.

Results: From October 2014 to May 2015, we enrolled 46 psoriatic patients and 36 healthy people in this study. The mean of serum vitamin D levels of patients was significantly lower than that of healthy controls (25.45 ± 11.77 ng/mL vs 30.61 ± 9.38 ng/mL ; p = 0.04). This difference was mainly in female patients. More importantly, we found that mean serum vitamin D of psoriatic erythroderma group was significantly lower than that of plaque psoriatic patients. Level of vitamin D was clearly reduced in female patients with pustular psoriasis.There was no association between the mean serum levels of vitamin D and clinical disease severity of plaque psoriatic patients.

Conclusion: Serum vitamin D levels decreased in psoriatic patients, especially in female pustular psoriasis and psoriatic erythema. These findings could provided an additional evidence for oral vitamin D treatment of psoriasis.

Reference: Regional Congress of Dermatology (RCD) 2016 – Singapore. RCD16-0334 Free Papers 1 (Eczemas, psoriasis) VITAMIN D SERUM LEVEL AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PSORIATIC PATIENTS M. Nguyen Le Tra1, A. Pham Thuy1, T. Van The1 1The University of Medicine and Pharmacy- Ho Chi Minh City- Viet Nam, dermatology, hochiminh, Vietnam