Purpose: To conduct stratified analysis of the association between periodontitis exposure and the risk of female breast cancer based on age, comorbidities and level of urbanization.
Methods: Using claims data taken from the 1997-2013 Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), we identified 60,756 newly-diagnosed female breast cancer patients during the period 2003-2013 from all beneficiaries. We then randomly selected 243,024 women without breast cancer matching (1:4) for age and the year of the index date during 1997-2013 from a one million representative population acting as the control group. A conditional logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between periodontitis (ICD-9-CM codes 523.3-4) and the risk of breast cancer, shown as an odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) after adjustments for the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and level of urbanization. Subgroup analyses were conducted based on age, CCI and level of urbanization.
Results: The mean ± standard deviation age was 53 ± 14 years. After adjusting for potential confounders, the risk of female breast cancer was found to be associated with a history of periodontitis (OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.10-1.14). Such an association was significantly different between patients aged < 65 years (OR, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.06-1.11) and patients aged ≥ 65 years (OR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.18-1.28; p for interaction <0.001), as well as between patients where the CCI = 0 (OR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.15-1.20) and patients with CCI > 0 (OR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.96-1.03; p for interaction <0.001). The highest level of urbanization was also associated with the risk of breast cancer.
Conclusions: This population-based nested case-control study demonstrated that periodontitis was significantly associated with the risk of female breast cancer and such an association was modified by both age and comorbidities.