Background and objective: After prescribing chrondroitin sulfate for the symptomatic treatment of osteoarthritis, it has been observed that some patients with concomitant psoriasis experience a marked improvement of skin lesions. We describe the clinical and histopathological results of the erythematous and desquamative plaques of three patients with osteoarthritis and psoriasis treated with chondroitin sulfate.
Patients and method: Three adult patients with bilateral knee osteoarthritis and long-standing psoriasis characterized by extensive erythematous, desquamative, and hyperkeratotic plaques, which were resistant to different treatment modalities, received 800 mg/day of chondroitin sulfate during two months. Skin biopsies were obtained before and after treatment.
Results: All three patients presented a marked clinical improvement in both pathologies. In addition to a decrease in the thickness of the epidermis (total epidermal thickness, maximal thickness from the basal layer to the beginning of the corneal layer, and maximal thickness of the corneal layer), a decrease in the number of keratinocytes in the proliferative phase, a decrease in the degree of psoriatic activity, and a substitution of parakeratotic keratinization by orthokeratotic keratinization were observed.
Conclusions: The administration of chrondroitin sulfate resulted in a significant clinical and histological improvement of the psoriatic lesions. The confirmation of these preliminary results in future clinical trials could represent an important advance in the therapeutic armamentarium of patients with psoriasis given the excellent safety profile of this drug.