Associations of peptic ulcer and gastric cancer with other diseases in US veterans.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine, through the database of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the joint occurrence of different diseases in individual patients.


METHODS
Patients with a diagnosis of gastric cancer, gastric ulcer, or duodenal ulcer were extracted from the 1987 through 1990 computer files. A random sample of patients from each annual file served as a control population. All previous discharges of each case or control patient between 1970 and 1990 were searched for the occurrence of hypertensive diseases or chronic diseases of the joints, lungs, pancreas, and liver. The relative frequencies of such diagnoses in case and control patients were compared by multivariate logistic regression.


RESULTS
Gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer, but not gastric cancer, were significantly associated with chronic diseases of the joints, lungs, pancreas, and liver. None of the three diagnoses showed any significant association with hypertensive diseases.


CONCLUSIONS
These relationships may reflect the influence of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, smoking, and alcohol. They stress the importance of environmental risk factors other than Helicobacter pylori in terms of damage to the upper gastrointestinal mucosa.
Sonnenberg
A
A
Division of Gastroenterology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA.
Wasserman
I H
IH
D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000453:epidemiology; D015897:Comorbidity; D004381:Duodenal Ulcer / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012307:Risk Factors; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013276:Stomach Ulcer / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014728:Veterans