How Do You Determine Which Type of Psoriasis a Patient Has?

It can be difficult to determine the type of psoriasis a patient is presenting, says Dendy Engelman, MD, a dermatologic surgeon with Metropolitan Hospital Center. Learn more in this video.

Transcript

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So it's a little bit difficult sometimes

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to distinguish what type of psoriasis you have. We talked about plaque psoriasis predominantly occurring over

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the elbows and knees and sometimes the scalp. Guttate psoriasis comes from the Latin for "drop-like,"

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so it usually is around the torso and looks like tinier little papules or plaques spread along the torso.

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And it can often follow an illness, like strep throat. Erythrodermic psoriasis is when you're really red from head

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to toe. And that's one that often can require hospitalization. Palmar-plantar psoriasis is easy to tell if you have,

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because it occurs on the hands and the feet. And inverse psoriasis is one that occurs in skin folds,

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so usually in the underarm or the axilla or in the groin. And sometimes those are ones that

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are tough to tell whether it's intertrigo, an overgrowth of a yeast, or if indeed it is psoriasis, because it doesn't tend to have that scale associated with it.