Increased prevalences of head and neck cancers in patients with Sjögren's syndrome

Objective: This study aimed to investigate prevalences of head and neck cancers in patients with and those without Sjogren'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 Sjogren's syndrome and 155 720 propensity-score matched comparison patients without Sjogren'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 Sjogren's syndrome and comparison patients (1.77% vs. 1.22%, p < 0.001). The odds ratio for head and neck cancers for patients with Sjogren's syndrome relative to the comparison group was 1.452 (95% CI = 1.325-1.592).Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that patients with Sjogren's syndrome face increased odds of head and neck cancers, encompassing several sites including the oral cavity, oropharynx, nasopharynx, and thyroid.