How do disease activity and severity in PsA relate to spinal structural damage?

PsOPsA Hub Steering Committee member Peter Nash, Griffith University, Queensland, AU, spoke with Fadi Kharouf, University of Toronto, CA, at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2025, Oct 24–29, 2025, Chicago, US. They discussed findings from a longitudinal cohort study investigating structural damage progression in the spine in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).¹  

Kharouf indicated that axial involvement occurs in 25–70% of patients with PsA and is associated with increased disease burden. In this study, at a median follow-up of 8.5 years, 18% of patients with no syndesmophytes present at baseline went on to develop them, with a median time to development of 5.8 years.¹ Kharouf noted that elevated inflammatory markers, including erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and higher radiographic sacroiliitis score were associated with the development of syndesmophytes.¹