Are patients with psoriatic arthritis at risk for hearing loss?

And since depression is already related to psoriasis, hearing impairment (HI) would further increase this risk, so this research by a Washington University School of Medicine team (led by Dr. Yevgeniy R. Semenov) underlines the need for clinicians treating psoriatic arthritis to also be alert to patients’ mental health.

The results of the study suggest that patients with psoriatic arthritis have mild hearing loss compared with their age-matched controls, allowing the authors to report that PsA is independently associated with a significantly increased risk of HI.

Analysis centred on 10,747 patients from the United States Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Individuals with PsA were more likely to “report hearing difficulties, visit a mental health provider, have 1.62 more days of poor mental health over the previous month, and have depression compared to controls.”

The actual mechanisms behind how this form of psoriasis affects hearing have not been explored, but the authors hypothesise that immune-mediated inflammation in cases of PsA can damage the ear. PsA cases can show articular manifestations with inflammation. Small studies have shown links between hearing loss and inflammatory arthritis.

Source: Dermatology Times