Analysis of Prevalence and Risk Factors of Chronic Rhinosinusitis in Hyperlipidemia Patients

Abstract

Background and ObjectivesZZAccording to previous studies, acute and chronic cholesterol depletion in the cell membranes of human airway epithelial cells suppresses MUC5AC gene expression. Also statins and lipid-lowering drugs are known to have anti-inflammatory effects. From these results, we hypothesize that the use of statin decreases the prevalence of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the correlation between hyperlipidemia and the use of statin and prevalence of CRS in Korea. Subjects and MethodZZThe data were based on the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2010 and 2011. Symptom-based criteria of European Position Paper on Rhinosinusitis and Nasal Polyps 2012 were used to define CRS. 12000 people were enrolled in this study. ResultsZZThe CRS prevalence of hyperlipidemia group (14.13%) was significantly higher than that of non-hyperlipidemia group (10.87%) (p=0.0005). However, the CRS prevalence between statin users (14.27%) and nonusers (13.94%) in hyperlipidemia group showed no significant dif ferences. Thus, hyperlipidemia itself was a risk factor of CRS regardless of using statin. Allergic rhinitis was the only significant risk factor of CRS in hyperlipidemia group in multivariate re gression analysis. ConclusionZZHyperlipidemia patients who have allergic rhinitis are at risk of CRS regardless of whether they use statins; however, further study using objective data will be required to verify this result.