Comparative and Correlative Study of Hematologic Parameters and Selective Inflammatory Biomarkers in Psoriasis

Abstract

Introduction: Studies show that hematologic parameters can be used as biomarkers in systemic inflammatory skin diseases. Materials and methodology: A case–control study was performed between April 2018 and April 2019 on 55 newly diagnosed (age: 20–60 years), untreated, biopsy proven psoriasis patients and 55 healthy nonpsoriatic individuals with no family history of psoriasis as controls. Sociodemographic details and clinical features from the 55 patients with psoriasis were collected using a questionnaire. Severity of psoriasis was assessed by psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) score. Blood samples of 110 study subjects were analyzed for the following parameters: red blood cell indices, hemoglobin, platelet count and mean platelet volume (MPV), white blood cell count, differential count, and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR). Along with this, fibrinogen, D-dimer, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) were also analyzed for all the samples. Highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) was analyzed. Student t test for independent samples was used to compare the data obtained from the patients and the controls. Patients were divided into two groups: one group having PASI < 10 and the other group PASI > 10. Results: Student t test performed on psoriasis patients showed that the two groups were significantly different (P < 0.05) in the levels of red blood cell count, mean corpuscular volume, neutrophils, lymphocytes, NLR, red-cell distribution width (RDW), MPV, ESR, fibrinogen, and D-dimer. Out of 55 cases, hs-CRP is reactive for 11 patients from PASI < 10 (n = 36) compared to 19 patients from PASI > 10 (n = 19; P = 0.010) and had a positive correlation with MPV, ESR. RDW, NLR and ESR, ESR can be used to assess the disease severity of psoriasis and assess the response to treatment. Along with clinical PASI score, these simple, less expensive biomarkers can be effectively employed in place of other biomarkers such as hs-CRP for management of the disease.