A survey of psoriasis patients in Japan from 1982 to 2001.

BACKGROUND

The Japanese Society for Psoriasis Research has conducted an annual survey of psoriasis patients in Japan from 1982 to 2001.

OBJECTIVE

To perform the epidemiological study about a survey of psoriasis patients conducted in Japan for twenty years.

METHODS

A sample of 28628 cases was collected from 148 dermatology centers throughout Japan. The reports from each center were analyzed.

RESULTS

Males (65.8%) were predominant over females (34.2%) in number. The vast majority of cases (86.0%) had plaque-form of psoriasis vulgaris, and 812 cases (2.8%) showed guttate psoriasis. Psoriatic erythroderma (0.8%), generalized pustular psoriasis (0.9%), and localized pustular psoriasis (0.5%) were rare. Three hundred of the patients (1.0%) manifested psoriatic arthritis. Local corticosteroids (67.8%) were the most used modalities, whereas local vitamin D(3) preparations (2.4%) were rarely used. For photo-therapeutic treatments, topical (12.1%) and systemic (7.5%) PUVA were predominant over UVB therapy (0.5%). In systemic treatments, drugs from the herbal medicine was the first (14.2%), followed by etretinate (7.6%), nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (4.4%), oral corticosteroids (4.1%), methotrexate (2.8%), cyclosporine (1.6%), and anti-cancer drugs (1.4%).

CONCLUSION

This survey was the first epidemiological study throughout Japan.