Association between asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic otitis media

Sung Kyun Kim,Dae Myoung Yoo,Hyo Geun Choi,Seok Jin Hong,Chanyang Min

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-08287-w

Abstract

We hypothesized that asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) might increase the risk of chronic otitis media (COM), as asthma or COPD affects other diseases. The aim of this research was to investigate whether the incidence of COM is affected by a diagnosis of asthma or COPD in patients compared to matched controls from the national health screening cohort. A COM group (n = 11,587) and a control group that was 1:4 matched for age, sex, income, and residence area (n = 46,348) were selected. The control group included participants who never received treatment for COM from Korean National Health Insurance Service-Health Screening Cohort from 2002 to 2015. The crude and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of previous asthma/COPD before the index date for COM were analyzed using conditional logistic regression. The analyses were stratified by age, sex, income, and region of residence. The period prevalence of asthma (17.5% vs. 14.3%, p < 0.001) and COPD (6.6% vs. 5.0%, p < 0.001) were significantly higher in the COM group than in the control group. In addition, the odds of asthma and COPD were significantly higher in the COM group than in the control group. Both asthma (adjusted OR 1.23, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.16–1.31, p < 0.001) and COPD (adjusted OR 1.23, 95% CI 1.13–1.35, p < 0.001) increased the ORs for COM. This positive association between asthma/COPD and COM indicates that asthma/COPD might increase the incidence of COM.

Highlights

We hypothesized that asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) might increase the risk of chronic otitis media (COM), as asthma or COPD affects other diseases
The frequency of alcohol consumption was significantly lower in the COM group (27.3% in ≥ 1 time a week) than in the control group (28.9% in ≥ 1 time a week)
Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) scores related to comorbidities were calculated excluding pulmonary diseases, and the number of participants with more than 1 point was mainly from the COM group (31.8% vs 29.4% in control group) (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

We hypothesized that asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) might increase the risk of chronic otitis media (COM), as asthma or COPD affects other diseases. The odds of asthma and COPD were significantly higher in the COM group than in the control group Both asthma (adjusted OR 1.23, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.16–1.31, p < 0.001) and COPD (adjusted OR 1.23, 95% CI 1.13–1.35, p < 0.001) increased the ORs for COM. Alteration of the microbial community in chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD leads to a decrease in mucociliary clearance and oxygen availability of adjacent upper respiratory mucosa This is known to affect the occurrence of chronic rhinosinusitis, chronic inflammation of the nasal cavity and paranasal sinus, and otitis media in children in which pathogens are introduced into the middle ear through the Eustachian tube[18–20]. This study aimed to demonstrate whether asthma and COPD can be independent risk factors for COM using data obtained from a national health screening cohort

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