Background: Psoriasis has been shown to be related to an increased risk of asthma, although the results remain inconclusive. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to determine whether psoriasis increases the risk of asthma.
Methods: A comprehensive search of medical literature data bases was conducted through May 2017. The pooled odds ratios (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated.
Results: A total of six studies with 66,772 psoriasis cases and 577,415 controls were included. Our meta-analysis showed that psoriasis was significantly associated with the increased risk of asthma (OR 1.32 [95% CI, 1.20-1.46]). The older age patients with psoriasis (≥50 years) (OR 1.64 [95% CI, 1.44-1.88]) had a higher risk of asthma susceptibility compared with the younger patients (20-49 years old) (OR 1.25 [95% CI 1.09-1.44]). Subgroup analysis by ethnicity indicated a significant increase in asthma risk in both Asian populations (OR 1.35 [95% CI, 1.18-1.54]) and white populations (OR 1.27 [95% CI, 1.05-1.54]) with psoriasis compared with those without psoriasis.
Conclusion: Results of this meta-analysis indicated that the patients with psoriasis had a higher risk of asthma susceptibility, especially among the older patients with psoriasis.