Prevalence of Oral Manifestations in Patients with Psoriasis
1 Dr. Y Pavan Kumar; 2 Dr. Albia baby; 3 Dr. P Suresh Kumar; 4 Dr. Ch. Venkata RamaniBackground: Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated scaly inflammatory disease that initially affects the skin and secondarily the joints and is caused by an interplay between genetic and various environmental risk factors. About 1-3% of the population is affected globally. It has a biphasic age distribution with peaks in the 3rd and 6th decades of life in males and 10 years prior in cases of females. The oral involvement of psoriasis is infrequent; however, some non-specific lesions are frequently associated with psoriasis patients. Aims: The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of different types of oral manifestations in patients with psoriasis. Methods: The current study was conducted on patients attending the outpatient department of dermatology at the medical college and hospital during a period of 2 months between October 2023 to November 2023. A total of 20 psoriasis subjects within the age group of 10 to 75 years visited the OPD and had their name enrolled for this study; among them, 8 were males and 12 were females. The patients who were primarily diagnosed clinically with psoriasis were examined for the presence or absence of oral manifestations. All the data were recorded and analyzed using the Chi-square test. Results: A statistical significance between the gender and oral manifestations showed that females had an increased prevalence of oral lesions as compared to males. Oral manifestations were seen in the majority of cases between 25-45 years of age.Specific mucosal lesions clinically suggestive of oral psoriasis were not found in any of the patients examined however nonspecific oral abnormalities were observed in 60% of the patients like periodontitis (45%), fissured tongue (25%), oral melanosis (20%), leukoedema, actinic cheilitis (15 %), angular cheilitis (10 %), petechiae, geographic tongue and desquamative gingivitis (5 %). Limitations: The limitation of this study was that the sample size was small and the study was done for a 2-month duration has yielded a result that might not depict the true statistical significance of the data collected. A large sample size is required to detect specific oral psoriasis. A biopsy can yield additional information regarding oral lesions in patients with psoriasis. Conclusion: The current study provides information regarding the prevalence of different oral mucosal lesions in psoriasis patients & their relation with age and gender, which were statistically significant. Despite psoriasis being a common dermatological disease, our understanding regarding its specific oral lesions is limited because of its asymptomatic nature.