Association of Congestive Heart Failure and Death with Ankylosing Spondylitis : A Nationwide Longitudinal Cohort Study in Korea

OBJECTIVE: We attempted to discover that Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) has a comprehensive relationship with congestive heart failure and death. METHODS: We used a nationwide database managed by the Korean National Health Insurance Service from 2010 to 2014. Twelve thousand nine hundred eighty-eight patients with a diagnosis of AS and 64940 age- and sex- stratified matching subjects without AS were enrolled in the AS and control groups. Incidence probabilities of 6 years congestive heart failure and death in each group were calculated. The Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was used to estimate the hazard ratio. We divided the AS and control groups into subgroups according to sex, age, income, and comorbidities. RESULTS: During the follow-up period, 102 patients (0.79%) in the AS group and 201 patients (0.32%) in the control group developed congestive heart failure (p<0.0001). In addition, 211 (1.62%) subjects in the AS group died during the follow-up period compared to 639 (0.98%) subjects in the control group (p<0.0001). The adjusted hazard ratio of congestive heart failure and death in the AS group was 2.28 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.80–2.89) and 1.66 (95% CI, 1.42–1.95), respectively. The hazard ratios of congestive heart failure and death were significantly increased in all of the subgroups. CONCLUSION: The incidence rates of congestive heart failure and death were increased in AS patients.