Auditory system involvement in psoriasis

Psoriasis is a systemic inflammatory disorder associated with many other chronic and progressive diseases. However, very few papers exist on the association of psoriasis with alterations of auditory function. We performed a clinical and instrumental pilot study of auditory function in 77 psoriatic patients and 77 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Main results: (i) hearing loss (HL), mostly of sensorineural type, was significantly more frequent in patients than in controls; (ii) conductive and mixed HL were more frequent in arthropathic than in non-arthropatic psoriatic patients; (iii) duration of psoriasis >10 years or smoking were also associated to higher frequency of HL; (iv) psoriasis was more severe in patients with HL than in those without HL. Abnormalities of the tympanogram were also found more often in patients than in controls. These data expand the list of extracutaneous conditions associated with psoriasis, and prompt for further basic and clinical research in this field.