Clinical presentation of psoriatic arthritis among sudanese: hospital based study

Back ground: Psoriasis is a common papulo-squamous disorder affecting 2% of the population and is characterized by well demarcated red scaly plaques. Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) may be defined as an inflammatory arthritis which is seronegative for Rheumatoid Factor (RF) and enthesitis that is associated with psoriasis. The aims of our study is to identify different clinical presentations and types of psoriatic arthritis. Methods: This is a descriptive cross sectional hospital based study conducted at Omdurman military hospital, Khartoum, Sudan, for a period of six months. The study included 96 patients confirm diagnosed by dermatologist as psoriasis, the data obtain with designed questionnaire contains the clinical presentations of the disease, lab result and radiological imaging, the study analyzed by SPSS v.20 by using one way a nova method to determine the P. value. Results: From the total number of patients with Psoriasis, more than one third was psoriatic arthritis, 6% of patients with psoriatic arthritis were oligo-arthritis joint involvements, 14% were polyarthritis, 9% were distal inter phalangeal joint, 9% were spondylitis/sacroillitis and the remaining 5% were arthritis mutilants. In conclusion: the study found out most common pattern of joint involvement in psoriatic arthritis is oligoarthritis, which is not known to be common in psoriatic arthritis previously.