Association of dysmenorrhea with interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome: a case-control study.

Objective: Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) is a chronic disabling condition of the urological system. Many gynecological conditions are reported to be associated with IC/BPS. This study presents epidemiological evidence of a possible association between dysmenorrhea and IC/BPS, using population-based data.
Design: A case-control study.
Setting: Taiwan.
Sample: The study sample was retrieved from Taiwan's Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000, i.e. 291 women aged 18-45 years with a diagnosis of IC/BPS between January 2000 and December 2010 (cases) and 873 randomly selected controls matched on age and index date of ambulatory care visit. We used logistic regression conditioned on age to calculate the odds ratio of cases having a prior diagnosis of dysmenorrhea relative to controls.
Results: Prior dysmenorrhea was found in 87 (29.9%) cases and in 163 (18.7%) of the controls. Conditional logistic regression showed a crude odds ratio of 1.86 (95% confidence interval 1.37-2.52, p < 0.001) for prior dysmenorrhea among cases vs. controls. The adjusted odds ratio was 1.59 (95% confidence interval 1.13-2.23, p = 0.007) after adjusting for medical co-morbidities.
Conclusion: This population-based study found that there is an association between IC/BPS and prior dysmenorrhea.
(© 2014 Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology.)