Psoriasis and HLA B27

Question:

I know that the genetic marker, HLA-B27 is frequently found in those with psoriatic arthritis, but is it also common in folks with psoriasis who do not have the arthritic component? My daughter has scalp psoriasis, also on hands and feet. I have some sort of undiagnosed arthritis (but no skin lesions). I wonder we can "assume" that she has HLA B27 because she has psoriasis, or does it only come when one has the arthritis WITH the psoriasis. Lucky

Response:

>I know that the genetic marker, HLA-B27 is frequently found in >those with psoriatic arthritis, but is it also common in folks with >psoriasis who do not have the arthritic component? My daughter >has scalp psoriasis, also on hands and feet. I have some sort of >undiagnosed arthritis (but no skin lesions). I wonder we can >"assume" that she has HLA B27 because she has psoriasis, or >does it only come when one has the arthritis WITH the psoriasis.

Another good reason to repost the link to the OMIM report, which talks about all sorts of genes associated with psoriasis: http://www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Omim/dispmim?177900 Doesn’t mention HLA-B27 specifically, but does talk about links with HLA-B in general, and HLA-B2 and HLA-B17 in particular. However, I recently read some info on Anklyosing Spondylitis, and this web site says that 96% of the people with AS in Britain have the HLA-B27 gene in common (of course, not everyone with HLA-B27 develops AS, just most of those who *do* get AS have the gene). http://homepages.which.net/~ks.burrell/nassdb/nassdb_3.htm BTW, there’s no ‘rule’ which says that you must have the symptoms of psoriasis prior to getting psoriatic arthritis, the triggers for the two are probably different. Anyway, the short answer would be no, you cannot assume that your daughter (or even yourself) has the HLA-B27 gene simply because she’s got psoriasis (or because you’ve got some sort of arthritis).  And it’s not even necessarily true for psoriatic arthritis. – Dave W.

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