Biomarkers Associated with Flares in Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is an inflammatory arthritis associated with psoriasis of the skin. Patients with PsA may experience flares, which are characterized by worsening of disease activity and intensity presenting with swollen and tender joints.

The implementation of biomarkers related to PsA activity and flares, helps identifying the right patients, which will improve patient management and decrease flares. In this study, we evaluated blood-based biomarkers of inflammation, fibrosis, and joint destruction in patients with and without flares, and found that the inflammatory biomarkers VICM, CPa9-HNE, and CRPM, together with the fibrosis biomarker nordicPRO-C3™, showed a good discriminatory performance separating the PsA patients with flares from the patients without.

Such biomarkers may therefore serve as tools for quantitatively monitoring flares in PsA patients and have valuable applications in the detection of disease, as well as the monitoring of health status. This may include diagnosing, staging, predicting progression of the disease, and response to therapy.

This work was performed together with Dr. Vinod Chandran and Dr. Katerina Oikonomopoulou at the Schroeder Arthritis Institute, Krembil Brain Institute in Toronto.

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