Association of use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors with risk of acute pancreatitis: a case-control study in Taiwan.

Background And Objectives: Few studies have reported the association of the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) with acute pancreatitis. We conducted a population-based case-control study to explore this relationship.

Methods: In this study, 4631 cases with first attack of acute pancreatitis and 4631 controls without acute pancreatitis were selected using a randomly sampled cohort of one million health insurance enrollees from 2000 to 2013. Both cases and controls were aged 20-84 years and were matched with sex, age, comorbidities, and index year of diagnosis of acute pancreatitis. Patients with current use of SSRIs were defined as those whose last tablet of SSRIs was noted ≤ 7 days before the date of diagnosis of acute pancreatitis; patients with late use of SSRIs were defined as those whose last tablet of SSRIs was noted ≥ 8 days before the date of diagnosis; and patients with no use of SSRIs were defined as those who were never prescribed SSRIs. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for acute pancreatitis associated with the use of SSRIs were assessed using multivariate unconditional logistic regression analysis.

Results: After adjusting for covariables, multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that compared with patients with no use of SSRIs, the adjusted OR of acute pancreatitis for those with current use of SSRIs was 1.7 (95% CI, 1.1-2.5), whereas that for patients with late use of SSRIs was 1.0 (95% CI, 0.9-1.2) without statistical significance.

Conclusions: Current use of SSRIs is associated with the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis. Therefore, clinicians should consider the possibility of SSRI-associated acute pancreatitis among patients currently taking SSRIs and those presenting with the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis without a definite cause.