Let's bring Cinderella to the ball

I've been joking about PsA being the ugly stepsister to RA and Psoriasis - but, in all seriousness, I do want this blog to be more about data than speculation. So this morning, I took a few minutes to check my assumption that prince charming (research) wasn't dancing with us PsA-ers as much as with the other girls.

Prevalence is hard to pin down for these three autoimmune diseases, but using data from the National Psoriasis Foundation and the National Arthritis Foundation, I found these rates:

• 1.3 million Americans have Rheumatoid Arthritis
• 7.5 million Americans have Psoriasis
• up to 30% of those 7.5 million have Psoriatic Arthritis. To be safe I am estimating 20%, which is roughly 1.5 million Americans with Psoriatic Arthritis.
  

So, we can assume that there is about the same number of people here in the U.S. with PsA as RA.

Now to PubMed, where research articles are made available to the public through the National Institutes of Health. There are:

• 97,163 articles on Rheumatoid Arthritis
• 27,203 articles on Psoriasis
• 3,876 articles on Psoriatic Arthritis

If my math is right, there are 25 articles on PubMed that refer to Rheumatoid Arthritis for every 1 on Psoriatic Arthritis, and 8 articles on Psoriasis for every 1 on Psoriatic Arthritis.

And, of course, to the mothership: Google. As of today, March 23rd, there are:

• 7,350,000 links for Rheumatoid Arthritis
  
• 21,700,000 links for Psoriasis
• 716,000 for Psoriatic Arthritis

So, there are 10 times the number of links for RA as PsA. (Psoriasis outstrips both of these diseases in Google links, interestingly).

Granted, RA is no princess - it tends to be harder to live with than PsA. But is it 10 times harder? 25 times harder?

More tomorrow - especially on what we PsA patients can do about this. For now, I'm going to buy myself a new ballgown & try to get someone to notice me.