"This result is not surprising, given the systemic nature of atherosclerosis," the authors write. "It has tremendous and far-reaching clinical implications, as all of these vascular conditions represent a major financial cost to the health care system as well as a major cause of disability and death. The latter finding was corroborated by our analysis, whereby we concluded that psoriasis is an independent risk factor for mortality; i.e., we found a higher percentage of deaths among patients with psoriasis than among patients without psoriasis (19.6 percent vs. 9.9 percent)."

Future studies should investigate whether aggressive treatment of either cardiovascular risk factors or psoriasis will lead to an improvement in atherosclerosis in these patients, the authors conclude. "In the meantime, we recommend that health care providers who are caring for patients with psoriasis be vigilant with respect to traditional risk factor screenings," they write. "It would be prudent for dermatologists to be familiar with suggested screening for cardiovascular risk factors and recommendations for aspirin use. If not, it is imperative that they work in collaboration with a primary care provider or another internal medicine specialist, who also needs to be aware of our findings."

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