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Objective: This study aimed to investigate prevalences of head and neck cancers in patients with and those without Sjögren's syndrome using a population‐based dataset. Methods: We retrieved sampled patients from Taiwan's Longitudinal Health Insurance Database. This study included 38 930 patients with Sjögren's syndrome and 155 720 propensity‐score matched comparison patients without Sjögren's syndrome. Results: Chi‐squared tests revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in the prevalences of head and neck cancers between patients with Sjögren's syndrome and comparison patients (1.77% vs. 1.22%, p < 0.001). The odds ratio for head and neck cancers for patients with Sjögren's syndrome relative to the comparison group was 1.452 (95% CI = 1.325–1.592). Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that patients with Sjögren's syndrome face increased odds of head and neck cancers, encompassing several sites including the oral cavity, oropharynx, nasopharynx, and thyroid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Whether tinnitus is associated with pre-existing hypertension remains uncertain. This study explored the association between tinnitus and pre-existing hypertension. Methods: We obtained data on a retrospective cohort of 542 884 cases ≥18 years old with a first-time tinnitus diagnosis from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. We used propensity-score matching to select 542 884 matched controls and performed multiple logistic regression analyses to estimate the adjusted odds of prior hypertension among patients with tinnitus versus controls. Results: Bivariate analysis showed no significant difference in the prevalence of prior hypertension between the tinnitus and no-tinnitus groups (35.58% vs 35.5%, P =.617). Univariable logistic regression analysis confirmed the bivariate analysis finding, unadjusted odds of prior hypertension among the tinnitus group relative to controls, 1.002, 95% CI: 0.994-1.010, P =.617). After adjusting for age, sex, monthly income, geographic location and urbanization level, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hearing loss, obesity, anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, alcohol abuse, nicotine dependence, anxiety disorder, depressive disorder and idiopathic intracranial hypertension, the odds of prior hypertension were similar among the tinnitus and no-tinnitus groups (OR = 1.006, 95% CI: 0.997-1.016, P =.178). Conclusions: Our population-based study found no evidence for an association between tinnitus and pre-existing hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 3-year nationwide population-based data set was used to explore methods of suicide (violent vs. nonviolent) and possible contributing factors among cancer patients in Taiwan. A total of 1,065 cancer inpatients who committed suicide were included as our study sample. The regression shows that those who had genitourinary cancer were 0.55 times (p = 0.047) less likely to use violent methods to commit suicide than those who had respiratory cancer. Among those who committed suicide out of town, the odds of using violent methods were 1.39 (p = 0.015) of their counterparts who had committed suicide in their hometowns. Those who had income between NT$15,841 to approximately NT$25,000 were 0.70 (p = 0.042) times less likely to use violent methods to commit suicide than those who had no income.