Increased depression, diabetes and diabetic complications in Graves' disease patients in Asia.

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to evaluate the risk of depression and other cardiovascular comorbidities in Graves' disease (GD) patients in Asia.

METHODS

The study patients were all newly diagnosed with GD [International Classification of Disease, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) 242.0] from January 1998 to December 2008. Patients aged <20 years or those with preexisting mental disorder (ICD-9-CM 290-319) were excluded from analyses. Control patients were randomly selected for the non-GD cohort, 1:4 frequency matched to the GD cohort according to sex, age and index year. The same exclusion criteria applied to the GD cohort were applied to the non-GD cohort. The GD cohort contained 4195 patients and the non-GD cohort contained 16 780 patients.

RESULTS

The GD patients were more likely to have diabetes (8.03% vs. 4.48%, P < 0.0001), hypertension (18.1% vs. 13.5%, P < 0.0001), hyperlipidemia (11.9% vs. 9.09%, P < 0.0001) and coronary artery disease (10.3% vs. 5.86%, P < 0.0001) than the control patients were. The GD patients were also associated with significantly higher risk of depression than the control patients were (hazard ratio = 1.69, 95% confidence interval = 1.45-1.96).

CONCLUSION

GD and GD treatment are associated with increased risk of depression diabetes and diabetic complications in Asian patients.