[Psoriatic arthritis: analysis of 69 cases and review of the literature].

In a retrospective study 69 cases of psoriatic arthritis evaluated at the Centre hospitalier de l'université Laval (CHUL) between 1968 and 1977 were studied. Certain clinical and laboratory features (age, sex, nail involvement, date of onset of the cutaneous psoriasis, date of onset of the arthritis, and the presence or absence of rheumatoid factor and the HLA-B27 antigen) and the radiologic data were compared with findings previously described in the literature. With three exceptions the findings compared well: at CHUL (a) the frequency of the HLA-B27 antigen in patients with axial psoriatic arthritis was very low, (b) patients with synchronous psoriasis and arthritis were not more severely affected, and (c) certain radiologic signs that seem to be rare and have probably been overemphasized in the literature were not found.