Psoriasis in elderly patients in the Côte d'Ivoire: socio-demographic, clinical, and therapeutic aspects, and follow-up.

Background: Psoriasis is a chronic, inflammatory, and recurrent dermatological disease. In the Côte d'Ivoire, it is about 0.75% of dermatology cases. Psoriasis care is challenging in elderly patients. We aimed to show its specificities related to the sociodemographic, clinical, and therapeutic aspects, and follow-up in geriatric patients.

Methods: Cross-sectional and descriptive study over a period of 10 years (January 2004-December 2013).

Results: The prevalence of patients 60 years of age and older was about 0.1% (47 of 46,623 cases). The average age was 67 ± 1 years ranging from 60 to 85 years. The sex ratio was 1 : 9 in favor of men. The average time course of psoriasis was 25 ± 2 months. Comorbidity was found in 27 cases (57.5%). The most observed type of psoriasis in our study was chronic plaque psoriasis in 51.1% of cases. We found severe cases of psoriasis in 25.5% of cases. More than 10% of the body surface area was affected in 27.6% of cases. We used topical treatments in the majority of cases (83%). The course of psoriasis under treatment was good in 63.8% of cases, and only 6.4% of cases were worsening.

Conclusion: Topical agents could be the first-line treatment in geriatric patients in poor countries. If necessary, systemic agents should be used by taking into account the severity of psoriasis, presence of comorbidity factors, immune system level, and lifestyle.