Children with allergic rhinitis and a risk of epilepsy: A nationwide cohort study

ABSTRACT Purpose Little is known about whether allergic disease is associated with a subsequent increased risk of childhood-onset epilepsy. We used a large, population-based cohort study to examine whether children with antecedent allergic rhinitis (AR) were associated with a subsequent increased risk of epilepsy. Methods This retrospective population-based cohort study was conducted by using data from the 2000–2012 Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database. We enrolled 67,537 children aged 0–18 years diagnosed with AR and 67,537 age- and gender-matched children without the diagnosis of AR. The incidence rate (per 10,000 person-years) of epilepsy was calculated. We used Cox proportional hazards regression analysis to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confident interval (CI). Results Of the 135,074 children included in the analyses, those with AR had a higher incidence rate of epilepsy (6.84 versus 3.95 per 10,000 person-years, p Conclusions These results suggest that children with AR were associated with an increased subsequent risk of epilepsy.