Increased risk of diabetes following perianal abscess: a population-based follow-up study

It remains unclear whether perianal abscess is a prediabetes condition or the initial presentation of type 2 diabetes. Using a population-based dataset, this study aimed to explore the risk of type 2 diabetes following perianal abscess.

We used data sourced from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000. In total, there were 1,419 adult patients with perianal abscess in the study group and 7,095 randomly selected subjects in the comparison group. Stratified Cox proportional hazards regressions were carried out to evaluate the association between being diagnosed with perianal abscess and receiving a subsequent diagnosis of diabetes within 5 years.

Of the total 8,514 sampled subjects, the incidence rate of diabetes per 100 person-years was 1.87 (95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.74-2.01); the rate among patients with perianal abscess was 3.00 (95 % CI = 2.60-3.43) and was 1.65 (95 % CI = 1.52-1.79) among comparison patients. Stratified Cox proportional hazards analysis revealed that patients with perianal abscess were more likely to have received a diagnosis of diabetes than comparison patients (hazard ratio = 1.80, 95 % CI = 1.50-2.16, p < 0.001) during the 5-year follow-up period after censoring cases that died from nondiabetes causes and adjusting for patient geographic location, urbanization level, monthly income, hypertension, coronary heart disease, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and alcohol abuse/alcohol dependence syndrome at baseline.

Our results suggest that patients with perianal abscess have a higher chance of contracting type 2 diabetes mellitus within the first 5 years following their diagnosis.