When someone gets bitten by a shark, it often makes the news. Yet, the frequency of shark attacks is rare and it is probably much more dangerous driving to the beach than getting into the water.
For proton pump inhibitors, it seems that they get similar press coverage as shark bites. Many times potential adverse effects are covered heavily by the media even though many of these effects are unproven or very infrequent.
A recent study (“Safety of Proton Pump Inhibitors Based on a Large, Multi-year, Randomized Trial of Patients Receiving Rivaroxaban or Aspirin” Moayyedi, Paul et al. Gastroenterology DOI: https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2019.05.056) shows that 3 years of pantoprazole had an excellent safety profile.
Here is the abstract:
Background & Aims
Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are effective at treating acid-related disorders. These drugs are well tolerated in the short term, but long-term treatment was associated with adverse events in observational studies. We aimed to confirm these findings in an adequately powered randomized trial.
Methods
We performed a 3×2 partial factorial double-blind trial of 17,598 participants with stable cardiovascular disease and peripheral artery disease randomly assigned to groups given pantoprazole (40 mg daily, n=8791) or placebo (n=8807). Participants were also randomly assigned to groups that received rivaroxaban (2.5 mg twice daily) with aspirin (100 mg once daily), rivaroxaban (5 mg twice daily), or aspirin (100 mg) alone. We collected data on development of pneumonia, Clostridium difficile infection, other enteric infections, fractures, gastric atrophy, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive lung disease, dementia, cardiovascular disease, cancer, hospitalizations, and all-cause mortality every 6 months. Patients were followed up for a median of 3.01 years, with 53,152 patient years of follow up.
Results
There was no statistically significant difference between the pantoprazole and placebo groups in safety events except for enteric infections (1.4% vs 1.0% in the placebo group; odds ratio, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.01–1.75). For all other safety outcomes, proportions were similar between groups except for C difficile infection, which was approximately twice as common in the pantoprazole vs the placebo group, although there were only 13 events, so this difference was not statistically significant.
Conclusions
In a large placebo-controlled randomized trial, we found that pantoprazole is not associated with any adverse event when used for 3 years, with the possible exception of an increased risk of enteric infections. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT01776424 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01776424)
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