Assessing Mild to Moderate Psoriasis Severity Using Photographs

According to a study published in JAAD International, psoriasis severity assessed clinically and by photographs had near-perfect agreement.

Researchers aimed to analyze how smartphone photographs along with a self-reported body region (BR) score can be used to evaluate psoriasis severity. Using the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) and the Physician's Global Assessment (PGA), researchers assessed psoriasis severity in a clinical setting. Same-day photographs of representative lesions from 4 BRs (head/neck, upper limbs, trunk, and lower limbs) were taken by patients and a questionnaire about BR score was completed. Five dermatologists rated these photographs and calculated intraclass correlation coefficients with 95% CIs.

The study consisted of 32 participants, of which 6% had almost clear, 69% had mild, and 25% had moderate psoriasis. Perfect agreement between the self-reported and clinician’s BR score was 59%; near-perfect agreement was 92%. Clinical and photographic PASI was 0.78 (95% CI, 0.55-0.90) for the intraclass correlation coefficient and the PGA had 53% perfect agreement.

“The agreement between psoriasis severity assessed clinically and by photographs was good in a study setting,” the authors stated, “This gives the opportunity to remotely assess psoriasis severity by combining photographs with self-reported BR scores,” they added.

Reference
Ali Z, Robert Zibert J, Dahiya P, et al. Mild-to-moderate severity of psoriasis may be assessed remotely based on photographs and self-reported extent of skin involvement. JAAD Int. 2023;11:129-136. doi:10.1016/j.jdin.2023.02.004