Context: Acute pancreatitis is associated with risk of morbidity and even mortality. Routine prescription drugs have been linked to the causation of acute pancreatitis.
Objective: To determine the incidence, presentation, course and outcome of drug-induced acute pancreatitis amongst patients admitted to a public hospital.
Design/setting: A retrospective analysis of patients presenting with acute pancreatitis to the Modbury Hospital, South Australia from January 2006 to April 2011.
Main outcome measure: Each admission was reviewed within the electronic database for patient details as well as to determine the aetiological factor. In patients with drug-induced acute pancreatitis, the WHO Probability Scale was used to evaluate causality relationship.
Results: Three-hundreds and 28 patients were treated for acute pancreatitis during the study period. Biliary and alcohol-induced acute pancreatitis accounted for 80.8% of cases. Eleven patients (2 male and 9 female patients; median age: 59 years) were diagnosed with drug-induced acute pancreatitis. These included 5 cases of codeine-, 2 cases of azathioprine-, and 1 case each of chlorothiazide-, valproic acid-, oestradiol- and simvastatin-induced acute pancreatitis. Nine patients had a mild disease while 2 patients had severe acute pancreatitis with a median hospital stay of 4 days. Withdrawal of the drug resulted in cessation of the attacks in all patients over a median follow-up of 24 months.
Conclusions: Routine prescription drugs, as an aetiological factor, accounted for 3.4% of cases of acute pancreatitis. The disease appeared to be more common in middle-aged women. It is likely that the overall incidence of this entity is under-reported owing to the stringent criteria needed to conclusively determine a causal relationship.