OBJECTIVE:

Studies of the risks of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) in patients with Sjögren syndrome (SS) in Asia are scant. We evaluated the effect of SS on the incidences of DVT and PE in a nationwide, population-based cohort in Taiwan.

METHODS:

We identified patients in Taiwan diagnosed with SS between 1998 and 2008 in the Catastrophic Illness Patient Database and the National Health Insurance Research Database. Each patient with SS was matched to 4 control patients based on age, sex, and index year, and all patients were followed up from the index date to December 31, 2010. We calculated the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% CI of DVT and PE in the SS and comparison cohorts by using Cox proportional hazards regression models.

RESULTS:

We followed 8920 patients with SS and a comparison cohort of 35,680 for about 50,000 and 200,000 person-years, respectively. The mean age of the SS and comparison cohorts was 53.5 and 53.1 years, respectively, and 88.9% of the patients were women. The risks of DVT and PE among the patients with SS were a 1.83-fold and 3.29-fold greater, respectively, than those for the general population after adjusting for age, sex, comorbidities, and frequency of hospitalization. The patients with a secondary SS had a greater risk of PE (adjusted HR: 5.06; 95% CI: 1.22-21.1) than those with a primary SS (adjusted HR: 3.21; 95% CI: 1.96-5.23).

CONCLUSION:

Patients with SS have a significantly greater risk of developing DVT or PE than the general population.