%0 Journal Article
%T Psoriatic Disease and Tuberculosis Nowadays
%A Nicola Balato
%A Luisa Di Costanzo
%A Fabio Ayala
%A Anna Balato
%A Alessandro Sanduzzi
%A Marialuisa Bocchino
%J Clinical and Developmental Immunology
%D 2012
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2012/747204
%X Psoriasis is a chronic, relapsing and remitting inflammatory skin and joint disease that has a prevalence of 2-3% in the world¡¯s population, whereas of 1¨C2% in Europe. The traditional concept of psoriasis as the ¡°healthy people¡¯s¡± disease has been recently revised because of ever-increasing reports of associations with various pathological conditions (hypertension, Crohn¡¯s disease, type II diabetes mellitus, obesity, dyslipidemia, metabolic syndrome, infectious conditions). Particularly, advances in psoriasis therapies have introduced biologic agents. All the tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors are associated with an increased risk of developing active disease in patients with latent tuberculosis infection, because of TNF-α key role against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. For this reason, exclusion of active tuberculosis and treatment of latent tuberculosis infection are clinical imperatives prior to starting this therapy. Moreover active surveillance for a history of untreated or partially treated tuberculosis or latent form has already been shown to be effective in reducing the number of incident tuberculosis cases.
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cdi/2012/747204/