Key clinical point : Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is associated with the risk for low bone mineral density (BMD), but this association is partially mediated by treatment with methotrexate or ciclosporin. Psoriasis excluding PsA in the absence of a secondary condition is not a risk factor for osteoporosis.
Major finding : PsA was associated with low BMD (β-coefficient = −0.014; P = .0006). However, the association became nonsignificant when patients were treated with methotrexate or ciclosporin (β-coefficient = −0.005; P = .28). Psoriasis without arthritis was not associated with low BMD or osteoporosis.
Study details : The data come from a cross-sectional study of 432,513 participants from the UK Biobank dataset.
Disclosures: The study was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Xia J et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2020 Jul 31. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-217892 .