Usman Khalid

Expertises

Cardiovascular disease; Inflammation; Chronic inflammatory disease; Psoriasis; Epidemiology;

Main research areas

Cardiology

Current research

Psoriasis-related comorbid conditions have been the subject of extensive research, and over the years, evidence has associated psoriasis with a range of medical conditions including metabolic comorbidities and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Similar to other immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease), psoriasis appears to confer independent risk of atherothrombotic disease, and traditional cardiovascular risk factors (e.g. obesity, diabetes, smoking, hyperlipidaemia, and hypertension) occur more frequently in psoriasis. Furthermore, psoriasis has also been linked to a host of surrogate markers of CVD, such as coronary artery calcification, endothelial dysfunction, increased arterial stiffness, and increased platelet activity. The notion that an overlap of inflammatory mechanisms can be a common pathophysiological-denominator in psoriasis and several cardiovascular conditions, is further supported by data indicating that systemic immunosuppressive treatment may lower the psoriasis-related risk of CVD.

However, limited and inconsistent data are available on several CV comorbidities (e.g. heart failure, aortic valve stenosis, abdominal aortic aneurysm) and to the best of our knowledge, nationwide data on these matters have not been presented earlier. Consequently, by employing nationwide register-based data from the entire Danish population, we aim to investigate the associations between psoriasis and these relatively prevalent cardiovascular comorbidities.

Potential conflicts of interest

No conflicts of interest