Background: Candidiasis and certain types of cancer are related to immunocompromised status. This study aimed to evaluate whether Candida infection (CI) is associated with subsequent cancer risk in Taiwan.
Methods: Data from the National Health Insurance system of Taiwan were used to evaluate the association between CI and cancer risk. The CI cohort comprised 34,829 patients. Each patient was randomly frequency matched with one person from the general population without CI on the basis of age, sex, year of index date of CI diagnosis, and other characteristics to generate the control group. We used Cox's proportional hazard regression analysis to estimate the effects of CI on subsequent cancer risk.
Results: Compared with the control group, patients with CI had a significantly higher risk of overall cancer (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.19, 95% confidence interval = 1.09-1.30). For subsite analysis, the risks of hematologic malignancy and head and neck, pancreatic, skin, and thyroid cancers were significantly higher in the CI group. Stratified analyses by sex, age, and follow-up time revealed different patterns.
Conclusion: Our study suggested that CI can significantly increase overall and some individual cancer risks, which is partially compatible with previous findings.
Keywords: cancer; candidiasis; population-based cohort study.