New Study: This Common Skin Condition May Spike Your Risk of 16 Cancers

The skincare industry is projected to grow to over $186 billion by 2028, with much of that bolstered by the sale of cosmetic skin treatments. Of course, dermatological conditions aren’t always about their aesthetic impact. Many have health effects that go beyond skin-deep.

In fact, new research published this month in the journal Nature has found that one widely known skin condition is actually associated with a higher risk of 16 different types of cancer. Led by dermatology and endocrinology researchers in China, the study also revealed an apparent cause-and-effect relationship between the condition and two particular cancer types.

To probe the topic, the research team used data from 13,463 patients who’d been diagnosed with psoriasis and 463,136 participants who were not. The information was collected through the UK Biobank, GWAS summary data, eQTL analysis data, TCGA data, and GTEx data from public datasets.

A chronic autoimmune disease and an inflammatory condition, psoriasis is known to cause skin rashes around the knees, elbows, midsection, palms, feet, and scalp. It typically presents as red, itchy, or scaly patches of thickened skin, the Mayo Clinic notes.

Building on previous research on the topic, the team sought to “systematically explore” the hidden links between psoriasis and 89 types of cancers in a large population-based cohort.

“We used PRS [polygenic risk score] and MR [Mendelian randomization] analyses to investigate whether psoriasis is causally associated with site-specific cancers,” they wrote of their methodology.

The researchers say their work confirmed previous reports that psoriasis is linked with higher risks of cancers in the following sites of the body, as listed by the research team: “lung, kidney, liver, bladder, non-melanoma skin, oral cavity, lymph nodes, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but also revealed associations between psoriasis and cancers of the breast, penis, anal canal and mesothelioma.”

Furthermore, genetic analysis “confirmed the causal relationship between psoriasis and lung cancer and breast cancer,” the study states.

Though more research on the exact causal connection is needed, the researchers note that having psoriasis suggests “a significant hereditary predisposition” to cancer.

“Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified several susceptibility loci of psoriasis involved in immune-mediated inflammatory disorders and innate/acquired host defense, leading to a higher possibility of developing cancer for patients with psoriasis,” they explain.

In particular, the researchers say that gene annotation shows “that psoriasis-related genes, such as ERAP1, are significantly different in lung and breast cancer tissues. Taken together, clinical attention to lung cancer and breast cancer may be warranted among patients with psoriasis,” the study authors wrote.

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