The University of Toronto Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) Clinic is now 40 years old and has treated over 1,498 patients who are being closely followed. This constitutes the largest and the most comprehensively studied group of PsA patients in the world. Both the clinic and the doctors associated with it are recognized internationally for their expertise in research and management of psoriatic disease.

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We are part of a number of Canadian and International multi-centre collaborative groups for psoriasis and PsA. Research in this area is ongoing all over the world thanks in large part to the training our international research fellows have received under Drs. Gladman & Chandran and the international recognition their work has received. Various centres around the world have invited Dr. Gladman and Dr. Chandran to speak and share their knowledge about this disease. As a result, similar clinics are now being established in other countries.

 

In 2003, Dr. Gladman established the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA). This is an informal, international group of rheumatologists, dermatologists, radiologists, methodologists and other interested participants who have gathered to study psoriasis and PsA and are involved in both research and education. Both Drs. Gladman and Chandran are actively involved in GRAPPA.  

 

Dr. Gladman is also an executive board member and co-founder of the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC), a national research program focusing on “Genetic and Pathogenesis Studies and Outcome Measures for Patients with Spondyloarthritis (SpA)” that includes a group of diseases affecting the spine and peripheral joints such as PsA.

 

In 2007, Dr. Gladman established the International Psoriasis and Arthritis Research Team (IPART), a highly successful international group of dermatology and rheumatology researchers who are working together to investigate the biology of cutaneous (skin) psoriasis and PsA and examine risk factors for arthritis in psoriasis patients. Its operations for the first five years (2007-2012) were funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) New Emerging Team (NET) grant which provided the core funding, as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, and subsequently by The Arthritis Society (TAS) and various industry support from Abbvie, Janssen, Celgene, Amgen, UCB and Novartis. IPART has made significant progress in its research program, particularly in the areas of clinical, genetic, and biomarker studies, and has proven to be an extremely effective platform for the discovery of genes and biomarkers that distinguish psoriasis patients without arthritis (PsC) from PsA patients.

 

In order to ensure that patient appropriate outcome measures are included in clinical trials, our clinic also participates in an organization known as Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials (OMERACT) which organizes international conferences every two years to discuss and vote on what measures should be used in research. PsA patients are involved in the discussions with the rheumatologists.