A population-based study on the association between rheumatoid arthritis and erectile dysfunction
- 1School of Medical Laboratory Sciences and Biotechnology, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Correspondence to Dr Herng-Ching Lin, School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing St., Taipei 110, Taiwan; henry11111{at}tmu.edu.tw
- Received 10 October 2011
- Accepted 4 December 2011
- Published Online First 4 January 2012
Increased mortality in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients can be partly attributed to an accompanying increase in cardiovascular risk. On account of the increased cardiovascular risks and chronic inflammation, patients with RA may be more likely to contract other conditions with shared risk factors, such as erectile dysfunction (ED). However, although previous studies have reported sexual dysfunction among RA patients,1,–,4 no study has explored the possible association between ED and RA to date. This study set out to investigate this putative association by using a population-based dataset and case–control design.
We conducted this study by using administrative claims data sourced from the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000 (LHID2000). The LHID2000 includes all the claims data and registration files of …
