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Homocysteine plasma levels in patients affected by hidradenitis suppurativa: an Italian experience
Author(s) -
Marasca C.,
Donnarumma M.,
Annunziata M. C.,
Fabbrocini G.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
clinical and experimental dermatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1365-2230
pISSN - 0307-6938
DOI - 10.1111/ced.13798
Subject(s) - hidradenitis suppurativa , medicine , homocysteine , dermatology , plasma homocysteine , disease
Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic, inflammatory, recurrent and debilitating skin disease, which is frequently associated with other systemic conditions. In particular, several studies have suggested that patients with HS have a higher cardiovascular risk compared with healthy controls (HCs). It was also recently shown that an increase of 5 lmol/L in plasma homocysteine was associated with a 60% higher prevalence of ischaemic heart disease. We carried out a study to evaluate the correlation between homocysteinaemia and HS to allow early identification of cardiovascular risk among patients under study. This was a prospective, nonrandomized, case–control study. The study was approved by the local ethics committee and carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. All participants provided signed informed consent. In total, 26 consecutive outpatients attending the Dermatology Department (University Hospital Federico II, Naples, Italy) from October 2016 to November 2017 were recruited to the case group. Inclusion criteria were: age ≥ 18 years, diagnosis of HS ≥ 6 months before study initiation; no therapy for at least 4 months prior to study enrolment. Exclusion criteria included a history of cardiovascular event; body mass index (BMI) > 30, presence of diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, or another concomitant inflammatory or metabolic condition, and smokers with vitamin deficiencies. Disease severity was evaluated by Hurley score, Sartorius score and the sixpoint Physician Global Assessment (HS-PGA). The HC groups consisted of 26 ageand sex-matched healthy individuals. The subjects avoided participating in strenuous exercise or becoming fatigued within 24 h before blood sampling, and were required to fast for 12 h before venous blood samples were taken. Plasma homocysteine concentration was determined by chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (CMIA). The cutoff point for hyperhomocysteinaemia was set at plasma levels >15 lmol/L, based on the normal range of homocysteine (5–15 lmol/L). Data were analysed using GraphPad Prism (GraphPad Inc., La Jolla, CA, USA). The individual parameters were expressed as mean SD. The analysed variables were compared between groups of patients selected by the use of multivariate statistical analysis one-way ANOVA nonparametric tests (Mann–Whitney test), and Spearman correlation test was used to evaluate the relationship