Original article

Etodolac and the risk of acute pancreatitis

¹ College of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien 970, Taiwan
² Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Tzu Chi General Hospital, Taichung 427, Taiwan
³ Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung 404, Taiwan
⁴ College of Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung 404, Taiwan
⁵ Department of Family Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung 404, Taiwan
⁶ Management Office for Health Data, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung 404, Taiwan

^* Corresponding author. Department of Family Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, No. 2, Yuh-Der Road, Taichung 404, Taiwan. E-mail address: wei@mail.cmuh.org.tw (S.-W. Lai).

Received: 29 August 2016
Accepted: 19 September 2016

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the association between etodolac use and acute in Taiwan.

Design: We designed a case-control study using the database of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance.

Subjects: In all, 7577 subjects aged 20 years or older with newly diagnosed acute pancreatitis were defined as cases, and 27032 sex-matched and age-matched subjects without acute pancreatitis were defined as controls. The period considered for this study was from 1998 to 2011. For the study, never having used etodolac is defined as a subject never receiving a prescription for etodolac. Active use of etodolac is defined as a subject receiving at least 1 prescription for etodolac within 7 days of the date of their being diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. Non-active use of etodolac is defined as a subject not receiving a prescription for etodolac within 7 days but receiving at least 1 prescription for etodolac ≥ 8 days before the date of their being diagnosed with acute pancreatitis.

Main outcome measure: The association between etodolac use and acute pancreatitis was estimated by using the multivariable unconditional logistic regression model.

Results: After correcting for covariates, the adjusted odds ratio of acute pancreatitis was 3.78 for subjects with active use of etodolac (95% confidence interval 1.11, 12.9), compared with subjects who never used etodolac. The adjusted odds ratio decreased to 1.18 for subjects with non-active use of etodolac (95% confidence interval 0.38, 3.67), but that was without statistical significance.

Conclusion: There could be an association between active use of etodolac and acute pancreatitis. Clinicians should take into account the possibility of etodolac-associated acute pancreatitis when patients currently using etodolac present with acute pancreatitis with an unknown cause.