Very few studies have been performed to determine whether there is a relationship between air pollution and increases in hospitalizations for peptic ulcer, and for those that have occurred, their results may not be completely relevant to Taiwan, where the mixture of ambient air pollutants differ. We performed a time-stratified case-crossover study to investigate the possible association between air pollutant levels and hospital admissions for peptic ulcer in Taipei, Taiwan. To do this, we collected air pollution data from Taiwan's Environmental Protection Agency and hospital admissions for peptic ulcer data for the years 2009-2013 from Taiwan's National Health Insurance's research database. We used conditional logistic regression to analyze the possible association between the two, taking temperature and relative humidity into account. Risk was expressed as odds ratios and significance was expressed with 95% confidence intervals. In our single pollutant model, peptic ulcer admissions were significantly associated with all pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3) on warm days (>23 °C). On cool days (<23 °C), peptic ulcer admissions were significantly associated with PM10, NO2, and O3. In our two-pollutant models, peptic ulcer admissions were significantly associated NO2 and O3 when combined with each of the other pollutants on warm days, and with PM10, NO2, and O3 on cool days. It was concluded that the likelihood of peptic ulcer hospitalizations in Taipei rose significantly with increases in air pollutants during the study period.
Keywords: air pollution; hospital admissions; nitrogen dioxide; ozone; peptic ulcer, case-crossover.