Increased risk of lung cancer in Taiwanese female patients with chronic periodontitis

Background/purpose: Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death globally. However, the association between chronic periodontitis (CP) and lung cancer risk is still not very clear. The aim of study was to investigate whether the Taiwanese female patients with CP might have increased risk of lung cancer using a nationwide registry dataset in Taiwan. Materials and methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted by using Taiwanese Longitudinal Health Insurance Database. A total of 86,886 patients who were newly diagnosed with CP from 2001 to 2012 were selected. A 1:1 propensity-matched healthy patients without any type of periodontal diseases were captured randomly from the general population. The risk of lung cancer was analyzed by Cox proportional hazards regression models between CP and non-CP cohorts. Results: 639 and 614 patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer were found in CP and non-CP cohorts, respectively. CP cohort exhibited a borderline significantly increased risk of lung cancer (relative risk:1.01 95 % CI: 0.90–1.12) as compared with non-CP cohort. The subgroup analysis of hazard ratio for sex difference, P for interaction was 0.042. The female patients with CP had a 1.23-fold higher risk of lung cancer than non-CP counterparts (95 % CI: 1.01–1.48, P = 0.036). Conclusion: Taken together, the results of this nationwide population-based cohort study indicate that the Taiwanese female patients with CP exhibited a significantly higher risk of lung cancer than those female patients without CP.