Patients with rosacea are more likely than others to have dyslipidemia and hypertension, and they are at increased risk for coronary artery disease independently of cardiovascular risk factors, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Rosacea, characterized by central facial erythema, visible blood vessels, papules, and pustules, is considered to be a chronic inflammatory disease even though its precise pathophysiology is not yet understood. A recent small study suggested that patients with rosacea might be at higher than average risk for cardiovascular diseases. To investigate this possibility, researchers in Taiwan performed a nationwide population-based case-control study using information from a health insurance database covering virtually 100% of the country’s population.
The investigators identified all 33,553 adults in Taiwan diagnosed as having rosacea in 1997-2010, and matched them for age and gender with 67,106 control subjects who did not have the disease. Patients were significantly more likely than controls to have dyslipidemia (OR, 1.41) and hypertension (OR, 1.17). After the data were adjusted to control for these and other cardiovascular risk factors, rosacea patients still were at significantly increased risk for CAD (OR, 1.20), said Dr. Tuan-Chun Hua, of the department of dermatology, National Taiwan University Hospital, National Yang-Ming University, and Taipei Medical University, all in Taipei, and associates.
Men with rosacea also were at significantly increased risk for diabetes, peripheral artery occlusive disease, and cerebral infarction, but women were not, Dr. Hua and associates said (J. Amer. Acad. Dermatol. 2015; [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2015.04.028]).
“The inflammatory nature of rosacea may be the reason for these associations, they wrote. “Clinicians should be alert to cardiovascular comorbidities in patients with rosacea.”
This study was supported by the Taipei Veterans General Hospital. Dr. Hua and associates reported having no financial conflicts of interest.