Comparison of medical comorbidity between patients with primary angle-closure glaucoma and a control cohort: a population-based study from Taiwan

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence and risk of systemic comorbidities in primary angle-closure glaucoma in Taiwan population. METHODS: We included 3322 primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) subjects and randomly selected patients without PACG from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database and frequency matched four of them (n=13 288) to each PACG patient, based on age and sex. The univariable and multivariable unconditional logistic regression models were used to estimate the effect of comorbidities on the risk of PACG as indicated by the OR with 95% CI. RESULTS: The mean age of the PACG group was 65.2±12.7 years, and 61.1% of the patients were female. The risk of PACG was greater for patients with the comorbidities of hyperlipidaemia (ORs: 1.11), headaches (ORs: 1.13), liver diseases (ORs: 1.14), peptic ulcers (ORs: 1.10) and cataract (ORs: 3.80). For the male group, diabetes (ORs: 1.19), liver diseases (ORs: 1.29) and cataract (ORs: 4.30) were significantly associated with increasing PACG risk. For the female group, hyperlipidaemia (ORs: 1.13), headaches (ORs: 1.15), peptic ulcers (ORs: 1.14) and cataract (ORs: 3.54) were significantly associated with increasing PACG risk. For the age group of 64 years and younger, patients with comorbidity of hyperlipidaemia (ORs: 1.20), peptic ulcers (ORs: 1.21) and cataract (ORs: 5.91) were significantly associated with increasing PACG risk. For the age group of 65 years and older, patients with cataract were significantly associated with increasing PACG risk (ORs: 5.07). CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians should be aware of slightly increased PACG risk in the subjects with the medical comorbidities of hyperlipidaemia, headaches, liver diseases and peptic ulcers. However, cataract is the strongest risk factor of PACG.