Risk of Stroke among Patients with Chronic Rhinosinusitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: Recent studies have suggested that patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) may have a higher risk of stroke although the data are still limited. The current systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted with the aims to identify all studies that investigated this relationship and summarize their results together to better characterize the risk of stroke among patients with CRS. Methods: A comprehensive literature review was conducted by searching for published articles in MEDLINE and EMBASE databases from inception to October 2018 to identify all observational studies that compared the risk of stroke among patients with CRS to individuals without CRS. Pooled risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using random-effect, generic inverse variance method of DerSimonian and Laird. Results: A total of 5 studies with 447,065 participants met the eligibility criteria and were included into the meta-analysis. The risk of stroke among patients with CRS was significantly higher than individuals without CRS with the pooled RR of 1.79 (95% CI, 1.34-2.40, I-2 = 84%). Conclusions: The current study found that CRS is associated with higher risk stroke. Whether this relationship is causal and how it should be addressed in clinical practice require further investigations.