Background/Aims: Psoriasis as a dermatological disorder has complex effects on mental health and the psychological status of the patient. Many authors proposed that assessing how psoriasis affects a patient's life is better than a body surface area measurement for delineating psoriasis severity. Alexithymia is a personality dimension characterized by difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking observed in many clinical conditions, especially in psychosomatic disorders. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of alexithymia in patients with plaque psoriasis compared with healthy participants, while taking into consideration demographic and clinical variables. Methods: We enrolled 250 patients with chronic plaque psoriasis, naïve to any systemic treatment, and 215 healthy individuals. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used to assess alexithymia. Data analysis was done. Results: The mean TAS score was 53.5 (±15.3) for the patient group and 45.1 (±10.8) for controls (p < 0.0001). Compared to controls, the psoriasis group showed significant alexithymic features (32.4 vs. 9.3%), and no significant differences of alexithymia between patients with severe and mild psoriasis were observed. A significant relationship was determined between alexithymia and female gender and sensitive area involvement, such as the face, hands, and genital area. Conclusion: This study suggests that the assessment of alexithymia should be a part of the comprehensive care of patients with moderate to severe psoriasis. For this purpose, the TAS-20 is a useful and simple tool to be used in daily clinical practice.

In our study, psoriasis is been associated with a high fat mass%. We suggest that screening for body fat distribution in psoriatic patients might be useful to identify early obesity-related disease.

At baseline, psoriatic patients showed a lower BCM and a lower mean PhA score. During ustekinumab treatment, the mean PhA and BCM scores increased with an improvement in psoriatic disease. Thus, ustekinumab can be an effective drug for improving not only psoriasis but also the general clinical status of patients.

In clinical practice, it is important to assess the response of psoriasis to tofacitinib and identify possible clinical, genetic, and immune biomarkers to predict the response. Comorbidities associated with psoriasis, in particular metabolic syndrome and obesity, are also an important aspect of using tofacitinib in clinical practice. There are some evidences that a drug such as tofacitinib could be used to improve not only psoriasis, but also some of its important comorbidities.

Psoriasis is a chronic condition that has a significant negative impact on a patient’s quality of life (QoL). Measures of the clinical severity of psoriasis alone may not reflect patients’ perceptions of the impact of the disease on their lives. The aim of our study was to assess QoL in psoriasis patients who were candidates to receive one of the new biological treatments in order to obtain a more complete evaluation of the severity of the disease prior to treatment. A total of 180 patients were analysed, with all being affected by plaquetype psoriasis. The clinical severity of psoriasis was assessed by the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, while QoL was assessed by three measures: the Dermatology Life Quality Index, the Skindex-29, and the Psoriasis Disability Index. Our results show how pervasive the impact of psoriasis is in patients who are candidates for the new biological treatments, and they further confirm the lack of a strong correlation between measures of clinical severity and QoL.