The Association Between Sleep Disorders and the Risk of Colorectal Cancer in Patients: A Population-based Nested Case-Control Study

Aim: To investigate the risk of colorectal cancer in patients with sleep disorders. Materials and Methods: We identified 7,355 participants with colorectal cancer between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2013, from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005 of the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database; 29,420 controls were also identified from the same database based on frequency matching on age, sex, and index date of the cases. Diagnoses of sleep disorders by International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) in the cases and controls prior to the index date were assessed. The risk of colorectal cancer in patients with sleep disorders was estimated with multivariate logistic regression analyses. Results: The mean age of the 36,775 patients was 63.05 years, and 56% of them were males. The risk of colorectal cancer was higher in patients with sleep disorders compared to those without [adjusted odds ratio (OR)=1.29, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.13-1.47] . The risk of colorectal cancer was higher in patients having sleep disorders with depression compared to those without the condition (adjusted OR= 5.69, 95% CI=4 .01-6.98). Conclusion: The risk of colorectal cancer in patients with sleep disorders was found to be significantly higher by case-control study and particularly pronounced among those with sleep disorders with depression, exhibiting a joint effect on colorectal cancer risk.