Transcript
Announcer:
You’re listening to Living Rheum on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll learn about the key role of education in diagnosing psoriatic arthritis with Dr. Philip Mease. He’s the Director of Rheumatology Research at the Providence Swedish Medical Center and a Clinical Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington. Let’s hear from Dr. Mease now.
Dr. Mease:
We need to teach primary care clinicians, dermatologists, patients, and nurse practitioners who are embedded in orthopedic practices or dermatology practices about the likelihood of developing psoriatic arthritis if you already have psoriasis.
Psoriasis typically begins in a person's life in their teens, 20s, and 30s. And now, there are very effective treatments for it, so it really shouldn't be difficult to manage. But many patients just don't get to the dermatologist and have it effectively treated. It is this patient group that is the ideal one to really educate about psoriatic arthritis, since 30 percent of them will develop evidence of psoriatic arthritis sometime in their lifetime. The average is around 10 years between onset of psoriasis and onset of psoriatic arthritis, which can occur in peripheral joints, with classic swelling of a joint or a whole digit. If the latter is the case, then we call that dactylitis. It may start with inflammation in a tendon insertion. So we need to make people aware that if they develop musculoskeletal symptoms, especially at an earlier age and they persist, psoriatic arthritis may be present.
There are several questionnaires that can be used and are validated to reliably be associated with the presence of psoriatic arthritis. One example is the PEST questionnaire, which is embedded in the National Psoriasis Foundation website. And if the person has at least three of the five questions that are asked—like "Have you ever had swelling of a joint?" Or "Have you had any problems with pain arising from a tendon insertion site?"—answered positively, then you may have psoriatic arthritis.
So it's this kind of awareness all through increased education of clinicians as well as patients that will successfully lead to a diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis when the patient is seen by a rheumatologist or another healthcare practitioner that is knowledgeable about psoriatic arthritis.
Announcer:
That was Dr. Philip Mease talking about the importance of education in recognizing and diagnosing psoriatic arthritis. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Living Rheum on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!
