The relationship of hormone replacement therapy and carpal tunnel syndrome

  • 湯 先秦

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) refers to the complex of symptoms and signs caused by compression of the median nerve as it passes through the carpal tunnel It often occurs in people who need repetitive wrist movements In addition to occupational factors there are some non-occupational factors that may also contribute to occurrence of CTS The incidence of CTS in postmenopausal women has been reported to be increased when the decrease in serum estrogen concentrations are at the greatest Also higher CTS rate was noted in pregnancy women Therefore the occurrence of CTS may be related to the fluctuation of estrogen We conducted a study to evaluate the relationship between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and the occurrence of CTS Methods: Data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database of one million enrollees during a period of 15 years starting 1 January 1996 was used All female older than 45 years-old was selected and those with the diagnosis of CTS before HRT use were excluded We selected people with diagnosis of CTS as cases and people who without diagnosis of CTS as controls Statistical association with CTS was determined for several medical risk factors The odds ratio and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated for each potential risk factor Results: A total of 118930 female older than 45 years-old was selected After excluded people with the diagnosis of CTS before HRT use 4535 patients with a diagnosis of CTS older than 45 years-old were included together with 113774 patients as a comparison group The prevalence of CTS in HRT users in women older than 45 years-old was 6 81% while it was 2 62% in those who had not received HRT yielding an odds ratio is of 2 72 (p
Date of Award2016 Aug 31
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorHow-Ran Guo (Supervisor)

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