Asthma and risk of coronary heart disease

Publication date: Available online 19 April 2017
Source:Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
Author(s): Huai Liu, Ying Fu, Kunpeng Wang
BackgroundFew studies have investigated the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) in patients with asthma, and their results remain inconclusive.ObjectiveTo conduct a meta-analysis to determine whether asthma increases the risk of CHD.MethodsA systematic literature search of the PubMed and Embase databases from inception to August 2016, complemented with references screening of relevant articles and reviews, was performed to identify eligible studies. Only longitudinal cohort studies were included in our meta-analysis.ResultsThe retrieval process yielded 7 studies (12 asthma cohorts) with 495,024 patients. Data pooling across the cohorts revealed that asthma was associated with an increased risk of CHD (hazard ratio [HR], 1.42; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.30–1.57; P < .001), without significant heterogeneity across the studies (I² = 26%, P = .19). This epidemiologic association was more pronounced in female than in male patients (female: HR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.41–1.59; male: HR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.16–1.47; P for interaction = .046). In addition, subgroup and sensitivity analyses supported the positive correlation between asthma and incident CHD.ConclusionAsthma is related to an increased incidence of CHD, particularly in women. Clinicians should be aware of this association when faced with a patient with asthma. Further investigations are required to examine how this excess risk should be managed in routine practice.



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