A nationwide population-based study on the association between chronic periodontitis and erectile dysfunction

Aim To explore the association between chronic periodontitis (CP) and erectile dysfunction (ED) by using a nationwide, population-based dataset with a retrospective case-control design in Taiwan. Material and Methods We identified 32,856 patients with ED as cases and randomly selected 162,480 patients as controls. Conditional logistic regression analyses were performed to investigate the association between ED and having been previously diagnosed with CP. Results Of the sampled patients 24,294 (12.3%) had been diagnosed with CP prior to the index date; this included 8825 cases (26.9% of the patients with ED) and 15,469 controls (9.4% of the comparison cohort). After adjusting for patient monthly income, age, geographic location, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, coronary heart disease, obesity, and alcohol abuse/alcohol dependence syndrome, patients with ED were more likely to have been diagnosed with CP prior to the index date than controls (OR = 3.35, 95% CI = 3.25-3.45, p <0.001). In addition, the association was much stronger among the population aged less than 30 years (OR = 4.54, 95% CI = 3.81-5.40) and the group aged over than 69 years (OR = 4.84, 95% CI = 4.35-5.39). Conclusions Our study demonstrated an association between ED and having been previously diagnosed with CP.