by Elana Gotkine

There is good agreement between psoriasis severity assessed clinically and by photographs, according to a study recently published in JAAD International.

Zarqa Ali, M.D., Ph.D., from Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg in Denmark, and colleagues examined the extent to which smartphone photographs together with a self-reported body region (BR) score can be used to evaluate psoriasis severity. Severity of psoriasis was assessed using the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) and the Physician's Global Assessment (PGA) in the clinic. On the same day, patients took a photograph of a representative lesion from four BRs (head/neck, upper limbs, trunk, and lower limbs); a questionnaire about BR score was completed. Five dermatologists rated the photographs.

Thirty-two patients were included: 6, 69, and 25 percent had almost clear, mild, and moderate psoriasis, respectively. The researchers found that 59 percent had perfect agreement between the self-reported and doctors' BR score; near perfect agreement was 92 percent. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.78 between clinical and photographic PASI. For PGA, perfect agreement was 53 percent.

"There is a good agreement between severity of psoriasis assessed on photographs taken by the patient with a smartphone of a target lesion in combination with self-reported extent of skin involvement and the clinical assessment of psoriasis," the authors write. "Future studies should investigate the validation of photographic assessment in the entire range of psoriasis severity and across all skin types and ethnicities."

Several authors were employed by Studies&Me, which funded the study.

More information: Zarqa Ali et al, Mild-to-moderate severity of psoriasis may be assessed remotely based on photographs and self-reported extent of skin involvement, JAAD International (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.jdin.2023.02.004

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