Psoriasis Increases Risk for Myocardial Infarction

Psoriasis Increases Risk for Myocardial Infarction - CME Teaching Brief® - MedPage Today: "PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 10 -- Psoriasis appears to be an independent risk factor for myocardial infarction, especially for younger patients with severe disease, researchers reported.
Action Points:
Encourage psoriasis patients to aggressively control their modifiable cardiovascular risk factors.
Younger patients, 30 to 40 years old, with severe psoriasis had almost twice the risk of an MI compared with similar patients without psoriasis. By contrast, 60-year-old patients with severe disease had only a 36% increased MI risk, reported Joel Gelfand, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania here, and colleagues in the Oct. 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
These findings came from a prospective, population-based cohort study in the United Kingdom comparing 556,995 controls and 127,139 patients with mild psoriasis and 3,837 with severe disease, in which the researchers controlled for major cardiovascular risk factors. The data have been used widely in epidemiological studies. "