ABSTRACT
Background@#Rosacea is a chronic skin inflammatory disorder that almost always occurs on the face, which can cause emotional stress and affect self-esteem. Rosacea is associated with psychiatric disorders, but there have been few studies on the relationship between rosacea and psychiatric disorders in Koreans. @*Objective@#We aimed to investigate the risk of psychiatric disorders in Korean patients with rosacea. @*Methods@#Data were obtained from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort. The database was collected according to the Korean Standard Classification of Diseases version 6, which is based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision. This study was conducted with 595 patients diagnosed with rosacea from 2002 to 2013. A total of 2,380 controls were set by performing 1:4 matching for sex, age, and index year. @*Results@#The incidence of psychiatric disorders was higher in patients with rosacea (114/595, 19.16%) than in patients without rosacea (319/2,380, 13.40%), with a significant difference (p＜0.001). Among several types of psychiatric disorders, the prevalence of anxiety disorder and behavioral disorder was significantly higher in the rosacea patients than in patients without rosacea (p=0.008 and p=0.044, respectively). The adjusted hazard ratio for psychiatric disorders in patients with rosacea was 1.543 (95% confidence interval=1.238∼1.922, p＜0.001). @*Conclusion@#Rosacea is associated with many types of psychiatric disorders. Awareness of the psychological impact of rosacea might be helpful in improving patient quality of life.
ABSTRACT
Background@#The relationship between latent tuberculosis and the use of certain biologics is well known, but the relationship between the test for latent tuberculosis results and psoriasis itself or systemic anti-psoriatic treatment (cyclosporine and methotrexate) has not been elucidated to date. @*Objective@#To assess the influence of psoriasis and systemic anti-psoriatic treatment on results of the interferon-gamma release assay. @*Methods@#A retrospective study was conducted on 353 patients who were screened for latent tuberculosis before the use of medicines for moderate to severe psoriasis. The screening was based on results of the interferon-gamma release assay. The control group included 2,025 health care workers who were screened for latent tuberculosis during a general medical examination. @*Results@#Interferon-gamma release assay was positive in 35.4% of the patients and 11.6% of the subjects from the control group. There was a statistically significant correlation between psoriasis and assay positivity (p＜0.05). Among the patients, no statistically-relevant association regarding previous use of cyclosporine or methotrexate was found (cyclosporine: p=0.284, methotrexate: p=0.231). Furthermore, patients were divided into two groups according to treatment duration, i.e., shorter or longer than 6 months. There were no relevant differences in treatment duration cyclosporine: p=0.243, methotrexate: p=0.743). @*Conclusion@#This study revealed a higher prevalence of interferon-gamma release assay positivity in patients with psoriasis. However, conventional anti-psoriatic drugs, such as cyclosporine and methotrexate, showed no significant difference regarding the assay positivity.