title: Comorbidities of dry eye disease: a nationwide population-based study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the comorbidities of dry eye disease in a nationwide population-based data in Taiwan.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study features a study group and a comparison group. The study group comprised 12 007 patients who sought ambulatory care for treatment of dry eye in 2005 and 2006. In total, 36 021 randomly selected patients were in the comparison group. Conditional logistic regression analyses conditioned on gender, age, monthly income and level of urbanization of the community in which the patient resided were conducted to calculate the odds ratio (OR) for each of 33 comorbidities among patients with and without dry eye disease.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The regression analyses revealed that compared to patients without dry eye disease, patients with dry eye disease were more likely to have comorbidities of ischaemic heart disease (OR = 1.36), hyperlipidaemia (OR = 1.68), cardiac arrhythmias (OR = 1.55), peripheral vascular disorders (OR = 1.57), stroke (OR = 1.31), migraines (OR = 1.76), myasthenia gravis (OR = 2.85), RA (OR = 2.86), systemic lupus erythematosus (OR = 3.98), asthma (OR = 1.25), pulmonary circulation disorders (OR = 1.37), diabetes with complications (OR = 1.31), hypothyroidism (OR = 1.94), liver diseases (OR = 1.71), peptic ulcers (OR = 1.76), hepatitis B (OR = 1.64), deficiency anaemias (OR = 1.31), depression (OR = 2.11), psychoses (OR = 1.87) and solid tumours without metastasis (OR = 1.41).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrates significantly higher prevalence of medical comorbidities in patients with dry eye disease in Taiwan.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Tsung-Jen
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: I-Jong
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Chao-Chien
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Herng-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015897:Comorbidity; D015352:Dry Eye Syndromes / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology