Comorbidities amongst patients with multiple sclerosis: a population‐based controlled study

BACKGROUND: Data regarding the wide spectrum of comorbidity amongst patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are still scanty, especially in Asian populations. Our goal was to analyze comorbidity prevalences and risks amongst Chinese patients with MS, compared to matched controls. METHODS: In total, 898 patients with MS and 4490 randomly matched individuals without MS were extracted from the National Health Insurance Research Dataset in Taiwan. We selected 30 comorbid medical conditions for analysis. Conditional logistic regression analyses were used to examine the risks of comorbidity between the two groups. RESULTS: The regression analyses showed that patients with MS were more likely to have systemic lupus erythematosus (OR = 26.9, 95% CI = 10.3-70.3), depression (OR = 6.9, 95% CI = 5.3-8.9), peripheral vascular disorders (OR = 6.6, 95% CI = 4.0-11.0), deficiency anemias (OR = 4.9, 95% CI = 2.8-8.7), rheumatoid arthritis (OR = 4.8, 95% CI = 2.9-8.1) and fluid and electrolyte disorders (OR = 4.8, 95% CI = 2.8-8.3) than the matched controls. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with MS had higher risk of multiple medical comorbidities compared to a matched control group in an ethnic Chinese population.