Comorbidities in patients with primary Sjogren's syndrome: a registry-based case-control study.
OBJECTIVE
Although multiple diseases associated with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) have been reported, reliable data regarding the prevalence of specific medical comorbidities among patients with pSS remain sparse. We investigated the prevalence and risk for a broad spectrum of medical conditions among patients with pSS in Taiwan.


METHODS
A total of 1974 patients with pSS were eligible for inclusion in the study group. We randomly selected 9870 enrollees matched with the study subjects, using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Dataset for 2006 and 2007, inclusive. Conditional logistic regression analyses conditioned on sex, age, monthly income, and level of urbanization of the patient's community were used to calculate the odds ratios (OR) of various comorbid conditions.


RESULTS
Pearson chi-square tests revealed that patients with pSS had significantly higher prevalence of hyperlipidemia, cardiac arrhythmias, headaches, migraines, fibromyalgia (FM), asthma, pulmonary circulation disorders, hypothyroidism, liver disease, peptic ulcers, hepatitis B, deficiency anemias, depression, and psychoses. Conditional regression analyses showed that, compared to patients without the condition, patients with pSS were more likely to have hyperlipidemia (OR 1.42), cardiac arrhythmias (OR 1.32), headaches (OR 1.47), migraines (OR 1.86), FM (OR 1.71), asthma (OR 1.54), pulmonary circulation disorders (OR 1.42), hypothyroidism (OR 2.37), liver disease (OR 1.89), peptic ulcers (OR 1.88), hepatitis B (OR 2.34), deficiency anemias (OR 1.33), depression (OR 2.57), and psychoses (OR 2.15).


CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence of several comorbidities was increased among the patients with pSS. Our study provides epidemiological data for comorbidities among pSS patients in an ethnic Chinese population.
Kang
Jiunn-Horng
JH
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Neuroscience Research Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
Lin
Herng-Ching
HC
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People / Q000208:ethnology / Q000235:genetics; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D015897:Comorbidity; D003710:Demography; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000208:ethnology / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D015995:Prevalence; D012042:Registries; D012859:Sjogren's Syndrome / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology; D044465:White People / Q000208:ethnology / Q000235:genetics