One limitation of the study is that researchers excluded more than 2.6 million people who had incomplete data on family history in Danish health registry records, which made the study population skew younger, the authors note. This makes it unclear if the findings would apply to people diagnosed with psoriasis later in life, the authors say.
Even so, the findings suggest that doctors should be asking psoriasis patients about their family histories, said Dr. Nehal Mehta, chief of the inflammation and cardiometabolic diseases section at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md.
“The major take-home message from these findings should be for providers to inquire about a family history of major adverse cardiovascular events since it is also a cardinal risk factor for future major adverse cardiovascular events in non-psoriasis patients,” Mehta, who wasn’t involved in the study, says by email.
