Increased risk of open-angle glaucoma following chronic rhinosinusitis: a population-based matched-cohort study

Purpose

Anatomically, the eyes and paranasal sinuses are neighboring structures and some studies have mentioned eye disease in conjunction with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior research has investigated the risk of developing open-angle glaucoma (OAG) among CRS patients. This study aims to provide an estimated risk of developing OAG among patients with CRS by using a population-based data set in Taiwan.

Methods

This retrospective cohort study used data sourced from the ‘Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000''. A total of 15 642 CRS patients were included in the study cohort and 46 926 subjects were randomly extracted as a comparison cohort. A cox proportional-hazards regression analysis was performed to calculate the 5-year risk of subsequently developing OAG following a diagnosis of CRS between the study cohort and the comparison cohort.

Results

The incidence rate of developing OAG over the 5-year follow-up period was 5.45 (95% CI: 4.95–5.98) per 1000 person-years for the study cohort and 2.80 (95% CI: 2.60–3.03) per 1000 person-years for the comparison cohort. After censoring the cases that died over the 5-year period and adjusting for the factors of monthly income, geographic region, hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, hyperlipidemia, and hypothyroidism the hazard ratio for developing OAG over the 5-year period for subjects with CRS to subjects without CRS was 1.73 (95% CI: 1.53–1.96).

Conclusion

We found that those subjects with CRS had a significantly higher risk of developing OAG over the 5-year follow-up period as compared with subjects without CRS.