Dr Premarani Sinnathurai  

Psoriatic arthritis is a chronic inflammatory arthritis associated with the skin condition called psoriasis. People with psoriatic arthritis can experience a wide variety of disease symptoms – some have many joints affected, whereas others have only a few. Some people with this condition experience inflammation at the places where tendons connect to bone, known as thesitis. It is not clearly understood why this is the case. There may be some genetic factors involved, and environmental factors may also play a role. Psoriatic arthritis is also associated with other medical conditions, especially cardiovascular disease and obesity. People who are obese are at increased risk of developing psoriatic arthritis, and have a poorer response to treatment for their arthritis. One possible reason for this is that fat cells, known as adipocytes, produce substances called adipokines which may promote inflammation. We did this study to see whether the blood levels of these adipokines were associated with the pattern of joints affected in people with psoriatic arthritis.

We measured the levels of adipokines in the blood from 39 people with psoriatic arthritis from two hospital clinics. We compared these levels with the pattern of arthritis and found that an adipokine called chemerin was higher in people who had many joints affected by psoriatic arthritis, compared with those who had few joints affected. Another adipokine called adiponectin was lower in participants with many joints affected. To our knowledge, this is the first study which has looked at whether these adipokines are associated with the pattern of joint involvement in people with psoriatic arthritis.