الفهرس 
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Abstract
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that is characterized by disfiguring, scaling and erythematous plaques that may be itchy. Although it is thought to be a benign dermatological condition with few serious complications, moderate-to-severe psoriasis is considered a multisystem disease. Psoriasis can be both emotionally and physically debilitating and impact on quality of life significantly. Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a multifactorial chronic inflammatory joint disease associated with psoriasis usually with no detectable rheumatoid factor (RF) and belongs to the seronegative subgroup of spondyloarthritis. Identification of a marker for the diagnosis psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and detecting the degree of disease severity has been of a great concern for many clinicians. There is no known clinically specific useful marker for identifying PsA. Moreover, laboratory parameters such as ESR and/or CRP are not always increased in patients with PsA even those suffering from a diagnosed and clinically active disease. Calprotectin, a calcium-binding protein, is one of S100 leuckocytic protein family members. An increased level of calprotectin in serum is found in patients with other inflammatory diseases such as RA and psoriasis. Moreover, a high concentration of S100 proteins has been detected in the inflamed synovial tissue from patients with PsA and RA. This study was conducted to estimate the level of serum calprotectin in psoriatic patients with and without joint affection, in addition to establish the correlation between the calprotectin serum level and disease severity. Our study included 90 subjects in three equal group; 30 patients with chronic plaque psoriasis complaining from joint pain and/or swelling of duration of more than 6 weeks , 30 patients with chronic plaque psoriasis not complaining from joint pain and/ or swelling and control group including 30 age, sex and BMI matched subjects. In our study, the serum level of calprotectin was statistically significantly higher in psoriatic patients with joint manifestations (410.43±206.66 ng/ml) as compared to psoriatic patients without joint manifestatins (222.06±93.17 ng/ml). Cases with psoriasis (in both groups) had a statistically significant higher serum level of calprotectin as compared to control group (133.27±23.05 ng/ml). In our study, the serum levels of calprotectin in psoriatic patients with polyarticular affection were higher as compared to psoriatic patients with mono/oligoarticular affection. However, with increasing the number of joints affected, the serum levels were reduced (median level is 341.47 ng/ml in cases with oligoarticular affection(1-10 joints) and 372.32 in cases with polyarticular affection(11-35 joints). All these comparison didn’t reveal statistically significant difference. In our study, in psoriatic patients with joint manifestations there was a statistically non-significant weak negative correlation between serum calprotectin levels and number of joints affected. In our study, there were no statistically significant correlations between serum calprotectin levels and BMI, PASI, RF, uric acid or age in psoriatic patients with and without joint manifestations. These findings indicate that serum levels of calprotectin might be more influenced by articular and systemic inflammations rather than the severity of cutaneous lesions. So, elevation of serum calprotectin level may be a useful diagnostic indicator of early arthritis in psoriatic patient.