Cost of Prevalent Psoriasis: A Population-Based Analysis

The document reports on a population-based analysis of the incremental costs of prevalent psoriasis, using clinical data from electronic medical records to establish both the prevalence of psoriasis and the specific treatments patients received in 2012. The study included 2,986 adults who had two or more diagnoses of psoriasis during the year. The mean adjusted total annual healthcare costs for patients diagnosed with psoriasis were $10,816 compared to $6,772 for controls, resulting in a significant incremental cost of $4,044 attributable to psoriasis (P < .0001). The study also found that patients treated with phototherapy had incremental costs of $3,910.17 relative to all adults diagnosed with psoriasis, while patients treated with biologic agents had incremental costs of $8,118.98 relative to patients treated with phototherapy and cost $12,029 more than all adults diagnosed with psoriasis. The findings suggest that there could be potential cost savings with greater use of phototherapy as a treatment for psoriasis compared to the use of biologic agents.