Bell's Palsy in Elderly Taiwanese Patients with a History of Peptic Ulcer Disease: A Correlation Study

Background: This nationwide, retrospective cohort study was initiated to investigate the correlation between Bell's palsy (BP) and peptic ulcer disease (PUD). Methods: The Taiwan National Health Insurance statistics were used in this large case-control study to investigate the correlation of BP in patients with a history of PUD. We included 69,340 patients in whom PUD was newly diagnosed between January 2000 and December 2005. The PUD patients were tracked until 31 December 2011 or when BP was first diagnosed. For comparison, 208,020 patients without PUD were randomly selected using a 1:3 case-control matching of age, gender and the year of diagnosis of PUD. The correlation of BP in patients with and without PUD was computed using Cox's proportional hazards model. The cumulative incidence of BP in both cohorts was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: Elderly patients aged 65 years or older with a history of PUD had a higher incidence rate of BP (at 1.21 per 1000 persons/year) compared to those without PUD (0.96 per 1000 persons/year). A significantly higher adjusted hazard ratio of 2.5 (95% CI 2.13-2.93; p ＜ 0.0001) was found in this group as compared to patients aged 40-65 years. Conclusions: A significant positive correlation between BP and a history of PUD was observed in elderly patients.