Clinical evaluation of a more rapid and sensitive Psoriasis Assessment Severity Score (PASS), and its comparison with the classic method of Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), before and after climatotherapy at the Dead‐Sea

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) is used to quantify the extent of the disease, and to evaluate its improvement with treatment. It is considered to be a slow, rough, nonsensitive, and complex tool, with high interobserver variability and low reproducibility. OBJECTIVES AND METHODS: To develop a simpler, more sensitive, and more rapid end-point determination for evaluating the psoriatic condition, and to compare its sensitivity with that of the classic PASI score in psoriatic patients undergoing 4-week climatotherapy at the Dead-Sea (Israel). RESULTS: This study describes a new, rapid, and simple Psoriasis Assessment Severity Score (PASS), whose readings are spread over a longer scale, making the test more sensitive than PASI, and allow better differentiation. CONCLUSIONS: The comparison between the classic PASI and our new PASS emphasizes the weight of the "sensitivity to change" (responsivity) in selecting a better evaluation method for psoriatic patients.