title: Reflux esophagitis and the risk of stroke in young adults: a 1-year population-based follow-up study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Reflux esophagitis (RE) is the most common manifestation of gastro-esophageal reflux disease with esophageal injury. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no specific study to evaluate the risk of stroke after diagnosis of RE in young adults. This study aims to evaluate the risk of stroke among RE patients aged 18 to 50 years during a 1-year period after diagnosis of RE compared to a cohort of non-RE patients during the same period.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study used the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005. A total of 2340 RE patients were included as the study cohort and 11 700 non-RE patients were included as the comparison cohort. Each patient was individually tracked for 1 year from the index ambulatory visit to identify those in whom stroke developed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Out of the sample of 14 040 patients, 78 patients (0.56%) had strokes develop during the 1-year follow-up period: 22 from the study cohort (0.94% of the RE patients) and 56 from the comparison cohort (0.48% of patients without RE). Patients with RE were 1.68-times more likely to have strokes develop (95% confidence interval, 1.03-2.76) than patients in the comparison cohort during the follow-up period after adjusting for patients' medical comorbidities, such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, renal disease, heart failure, and hyperlipidemia, as well as their demographic differences, such as the level of urbanization of their communities, monthly income, and geographical location.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that RE is associated with an increased risk of subsequent stroke in young adults.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Jau-Jiuan
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Sheu
authors.forename: Jiunn-Horng
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Horng-Yuan
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Lou
authors.forename: Herng-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004942:Esophagitis, Peptic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012306:Risk; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D020521:Stroke / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013624:Taiwan