Background: The World Health Organization has identified psoriasis as a serious global health issue. Psoriasis is a persistent, autoimmune skin condition. Survivin is a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis family (IAP) family of molecules that has significant effects on cell survival and proliferation. Survivin, unlike other IAP members, is seldom expressed in healthy adult tissues but is abundantly expressed in the majority of neoplasms. Fetal tissues also have a high level of expression.
Objective: The aim of the current study is to estimate serum level of survivin in psoriatic patients and searching for correlation between its level and disease severity.
Subjects and Methods: This is a case control study was carried out on 45 patients with psoriasis & 45 matched healthy controls. All participants were recruited from those attending the outpatient clinic of Dermatology, Andrology & STDs Department, Mansoura University Hospitals, Mansoura, Egypt.
Results: Non statistically significant difference was found between studied groups as regard occupation, marital status and smoking history. Among all studied cases, 75.6% have gradual disease onset, 40% progressive, median disease duration is 8 years ranging from 1 to 40 years and 13.3% positive family history, 15.6% positive systemic diseases, 15.6% surgical operation, 71.1% have psychological stress, 4.4% positive drug history, 100% topical therapy, 4.4% previous systemic therapy and 26.7% positive previous phototherapy, 100% Skin affection, Presence of trauma, positive Grattage test, 62.2% hair affection and 46.7% nail affection.
Conclusion: Patients with psoriasis have higher levels of survivin. Survivin did not correlate with severity of psoriasis (PASI). Higher survivin could predict psoriasis susceptibility, but not severity of psoriasis.