Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory dermatosis with a relapsing course. The best known comorbidity is psoriatic arthritis. In daily clinical practise it is well known, that patients with psoriasis show more often classic cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, Diabetes mellitus, hyperlipoproteinemia, hypertension, nicotine abuse often presenting as Metabolic Syndrome and suffer more often from coronary heart disease than patients without psoriasis. This could be demonstrated in numerous clinical and epidemiologic studies. In the last few years there is increasing evidence for psoriasis being an independent cardiovascular risk factor despite of concomitant classic risk factors. This review summarizes the current state of research and discusses possible common immunopathogenetic mechanisms.
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