Chronic Urticaria and Osteoporosis: A longitudinal, Community‐based Cohort Study of 11,944 Patients

Abstract

Background

Chronic urticaria (CU) carries many risk factors for osteoporosis, but data on the relation between CU and osteoporosis are lacking.

Objective

To evaluate the association between CU and osteoporosis in a large community‐based study.

Methods

A nationwide observational longitudinal cohort study was conducted. CU was defined as four couples with urticaria diagnoses; each couple was recorded within a period of six weeks and was registered by physicians in a primary care setting. CU patients and their age‐ and gender‐ matched controls were followed for the incidence of osteoporosis and other laboratory data between 2002–2017. Data regarding systemic steroids exposure and other relevant risk factors for osteoporosis were obtained. Analyses of risk for osteoporosis were performed in Cox regression models adjusted for age, sex, exposure to systemic corticosteroids, obesity, smoking, hyper‐ and hypo‐ thyroid disease.

Results

The study included 11,944 patients with CU and 59,829 controls. During the study's observation period 1,035 (8.7%) patients with CU were diagnosed with osteoporosis compared with 4,046 (6.8%) controls. The adjusted multivariate analysis demonstrated that CU was significantly associated with a higher risk for osteoporosis (HR = 1.23, 95% CI 1.10–1.37, p <0.001).

Conclusions

CU may impose a risk for osteoporosis. An appropriate targeted screening should be considered.

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