Chronic Rhinosinusitis associated with Coronary Heart Disease: OJOR

Significant relationships between Chronic Rhinosinusitis (CRS) and Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) can be drawn, based on recent research published in the Journal of Otolaryngology and Rhinology.

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a well-known heterogeneous disorder due to its potentially infectious status along with long-term inflammation of the nose, paranasal sinuses, and lining of the nasal passages, which lasts for 12 consecutive weeks or longer. Although the definite pathophysiological mechanism is not clear, recent studies have postulated bacterial infections with biofilm or fungal colonization as the pathophysiological mechanisms. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a critical public health problem across developed countries worldwide. A newly published study has shown that patients with CRS were at a higher risk of acute myocardial infarction in a 6-year follow-up.

In a recent study, Taiwan-based researchers tried to assess if the incidence of cardiovascular complications increased in untreated CRS.

We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study using data extracted from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database of Taiwan from 2000 to 2010 (follow-up 2011).

The database with a sample of 1 million cohorts was randomly selected from 23 million individuals.

The study population comprised individuals who were first diagnosed with chronic sinusitis (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification 473) since 2000, which was defined as the index day. Patients with ischemic heart disease were excluded from this study.

In addition, the matched system was adjusted for age, sex, and the index year. In total, data on 13644 patients with CRS from 2000 to 2010 were extracted for the study cohort. The comparison groups were selected by matching patients with CRS in terms of age, sex, and the index year.

The researchers noted the following results:

1. The cumulative incidence of CHD was significantly different between the patients with and without CRS.

2. In addition, after adjusting for age, sex, and comorbidities such as DM, HTN, hyperlipidemia, asthma, stroke, COPD, alcohol-related illness, and tobacco dependency, the hazard ratio of CHD for individuals with CRS was 1.21 compared with individuals without CRS.

"Our study showed that CRS was significantly associated with CHD. Our study also found that women with CRS are more likely to develop CHD than men, and aggressive surgical treatment seems to be protective; although, there was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of CHD. Patients with CRS may be more alert to their cardiovascular conditions," the authors concluded.

For the full article: DOI: 10.23937/2572-4193.1510119