Further study is warranted for the association of cardiac biomarkers with cardiovascular (CV) outcomes in patients with psoriatic disease (PsD), according to a study published online March 8 in Arthritis & Rheumatology .

Keith Colaço, from the Women's College Hospital in Toronto, and colleagues measured carotid total plaque area (TPA) in 358 participants with PsD at baseline. The association between cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and pro-brain-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), measured using automated clinical assays, and carotid atherosclerosis was assessed after adjustment for CV risk factors. Improvement in the prediction of CV events also was tested.

The researchers found that cTnI and NT-proBNP were associated with TPA in univariate analyses. The association remained statistically significant for cTnI, but not for NT-proBNP, after adjustment for CV risk factors. Sixty-four of 1,000 PsD patients assessed for CV risk prediction had incident CV events. No improvement in predictive performance was seen when comparing a base model with the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) alone with expanded models with the FRS plus cardiac biomarkers.

"cTnI may be as effective as established measures of carotid plaque burden for identifying subclinical atherosclerosis long before CV events occur," the authors write. "However, the lack of improvement in prediction metrics beyond the FRS does not support the routine use of these cardiac biomarkers for CV risk stratification in asymptomatic patients with PsD."

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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