Evidence Hub

Risk of myocardial infarction and stroke following microbiologically confirmed urinary tract infection: a self-controlled case series study using linked electronic health data

Nicola F. Reeve, Victoria Best, R. Cannings-John, David Gillespie, Kathryn Hughes, Fiona V. Lugg-Widger, F. Torabi, Mandy Wootton et al.

BMJ Open, 2025

51 participants · 3 citations

Abstract

Objectives The inflammatory response from acute infection may trigger cardiovascular events. We aimed to estimate associations between microbiologically confirmed urinary tract infections (UTIs) and first acute myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke. Design We used a self-controlled case series, with risk periods 1–7, 8–14, 15–28 and 29–90 days after UTI. Included individuals experienced the outcome and exposure of interest and acted as their own controls. Setting We used individually linked general practice, hospital admission and microbiology data for the population of Wales held by the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage databank. Participants Included individuals were Welsh residents aged over 30 years with a record of a hospital admission for MI or stroke (outcomes) and evidence of a microbiologically confirmed UTI (exposure) during the study period of 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2020. Main outcome measures The primary outcome was acute MI or stroke identified using the International Classification of Disease V.10 codes from inpatient diagnoses recorded in the Patient Episode Database for Wales. We used Poisson regression to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and 95% CIs for MI and stroke during predefined risk periods, compared with baseline periods. Results During the study period, 51 660 individuals had a hospital admission for MI, of whom 2320 (4.5%) had 3900 microbiologically confirmed UTIs, and 58 150 had a hospital admission for stroke, of whom 2840 (4.9%)…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a case series, done in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health. Reported size: 51 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free