Increased risk of cardiovascular comorbidities in hidradenitis suppurativa: A nationwide, population-based, cohort study in Taiwan.

Abstract

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) has been reported to be associated with metabolic syndrome and coronary artery disease (CAD). Nevertheless, a nationwide study of this relationship in the Asian population has not been conducted. The aim of the present study was to clarify the cardiovascular disease risk factors, and the occurrence of CAD and cerebral infarction among patients with HS by using a nationwide database in Taiwan. We obtained data from the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan. After adjusting for confounding factors, we used Cox proportional hazards analysis to reveal the risk of incident hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM), dyslipidemia, CAD and cerebral infarction in HS patients. We identified 478 patients with newly diagnosed HS and 1912 patients in the control cohort during the 10-year follow-up period. Compared with the controls, HS patients had a higher risk of dyslipidemia (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 3.858; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.785-5.346; P < 0.001), HTN (aHR, 1.910; 95% CI, 1.463-2.493; P < 0.001), DM (aHR, 1.709; 95% CI, 1.127-2.591; P = 0.012). Regarding comorbidities, our results also revealed a higher risk of CAD in HS patients (aHR, 2.722; 95% CI, 1.628-4.553; P < 0.001), but not cerebral infarction (aHR, 0.514; 95% CI, 0.119-2.231; P = 0.375). Our results indicate that there is a higher risk of dyslipidemia, HTN, DM and CAD in HS patients.