Sex-specific risk factors associated with graves’ orbitopathy in Korean patients with newly diagnosed graves’ disease

OBJECTIVE: To assess sex-specific risk factors for Graves’ orbitopathy (GO) in newly diagnosed Graves’ disease (GD) patients. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the National Health Insurance Service’s sample database, which consisted of 1,137,861 subjects from 2002 to 2019. The international classification of disease-10 codes was used to identify those who developed GD (E05) and GO (H062). A multivariable Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the effect of risk factors on GO development. RESULTS: Among 2145 male and 5047 female GD patients, GO occurred in 134 men (6.2%) and 293 women (5.8%). A multivariable Cox regression model revealed that GO development was significantly associated with younger age (HR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.73–0.98), low income (HR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.35–0.86), and heavy drinking (HR = 1.79, 95% CI = 1.10–2.90) in men, and with younger age (HR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.81–0.98), lower body mass index (HR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.33–0.90), high total cholesterol (HR = 1.04, 95% CI = 1.01–1.06), hyperlipidaemia (HR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.02–1.85), and lower statin dose (HR = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.22–0.62) in women. There was no association between smoking and GO development in both men and women. CONCLUSIONS: The risk factors for GO development were sex-dependent. These results show the need for more sophisticated attention and support considering sex characteristics in GO surveillance.