Department of Neurosurgery, Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Chiayi, Taiwan.
School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.
Neuroepidemiology. 2017;49(3-4):174-178. doi: 10.1159/000481991. Epub 2017 Nov 30.
It remains unclear whether tinnitus is associated with a higher risk of benign or malignant brain tumors in humans. Therefore, the aim of this secondary study was to investigate the risk of brain tumors in adult with tinnitus using data from a nationwide health claims research database.
Patients aged 20-50 years who were newly diagnosed with tinnitus were identified from the Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database and they served as the study cohort. A comparison cohort was formed by using patients without tinnitus from the same database with frequency matching (4: 1) by 10-year age interval and gender to the patients in the tinnitus cohort. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate the adjusted hazard ratios (AHR) for benign and malignant brain tumors in patients with tinnitus, adjusting for age, gender, and comorbidities.
There were 15,819 patients in the tinnitus cohort and 63,276 in the comparison cohort. A significantly higher proportion of patients with tinnitus had benign brain tumor (p = 0.003) and all 11 comorbid conditions (p < 0.001) compared to those without tinnitus. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis performed on the basis of age, gender, and the 11 comorbidities revealed that tinnitus was independently associated with a higher risk for benign brain tumor (AHR 1.65, 95% CI 1.24-2.20, p = 0.001) and but not with malignant brain tumors (AHR 1.66, 95% CI 0.93-2.94, p = 0.085).
Findings from this secondary cohort analysis indicated that tinnitus is associated with a higher risk of benign brain tumors.
耳鸣是否与人类良性或恶性脑肿瘤的风险增加有关尚不清楚。因此，本二次研究旨在使用全国健康保险研究数据库的数据来研究成年耳鸣患者发生脑肿瘤的风险。
从台湾全民健康保险研究数据库中确定了年龄在 20-50 岁之间新诊断为耳鸣的患者，并将其作为研究队列。通过 10 年年龄间隔和性别与耳鸣队列中的患者进行频率匹配（4：1），从同一数据库中为无耳鸣患者组成了对照组。使用 Cox 比例风险模型计算耳鸣患者发生良性和恶性脑肿瘤的调整后的风险比（AHR），并调整年龄、性别和合并症。
耳鸣队列中有 15819 例患者，对照组中有 63276 例患者。与无耳鸣的患者相比，患有耳鸣的患者良性脑肿瘤（p=0.003）和所有 11 种合并症（p<0.001）的比例明显更高。根据年龄、性别和 11 种合并症进行的 Cox 比例风险回归分析表明，耳鸣与良性脑肿瘤的风险增加独立相关（AHR 1.65，95%CI 1.24-2.20，p=0.001），但与恶性脑肿瘤无关（AHR 1.66，95%CI 0.93-2.94，p=0.085）。
本次二次队列分析的结果表明，耳鸣与良性脑肿瘤的风险增加有关。
