purpose: To determine the incidence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients treated with corticosteroids. patients and methods: The incidence of upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding was assessed in a cohort of 19,880 patients from the Michigan Medicaid billing database with dermatitis and/ or asthma treated with corticosteroids during 1980 to 1984. The frequency of upper gastrointestinal bleeding was assessed within 60 days after each corticosteroid prescription. results: The incidence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients without a past history of upper gastrointestinal bleeding who were exposed to corticosteroids was only 2.8 cases per 10,000 person-months. The rate of upper gastrointestinal bleeding was notably higher in patients receiving anticoagulants and those with a prior history of upper gastrointestinal bleeding (23.0 and 15.9 cases per 10,000 person-months, respectively). conclusion: Because the incidence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in ambulatory patients treated with corticosteroids is so low, prophylactic therapy should be restricted to high-risk patients, if it is to be used at all.

Suprofen, a new nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, was marketed in early 1986 as an analgesic agent. Until physicians began reporting an unusual acute flank pain syndrome to the spontaneous reporting system, 700,000 persons used the drug in the United States. Through August 1986, a total of 163 cases of this syndrome were reported. To elucidate the epidemiology of the syndrome, a case-control study was performed, comparing 62 of the case patients who had been reported to the spontaneous reporting system to 185 suprofen-exposed control subjects who did not have the syndrome. Case patients were more likely to be men (odds ratio, 3.8; 95% confidence interval, 1.2-12.1), suffer from hay fever and asthma (odds ratio, 3.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.0-11.9); to participate in regular exercise (odds ratio, 5.9; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-30.7), especially in the use of Nautilus equipment (p = 0.02); and to use alcohol (odds ratio, 4.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-17.5). Possible risk factors included young age, concurrent use of other analgesic agents (especially ibuprofen), preexisting renal disease, a history of kidney stones, a history of gout, a recent increase in activity, a recent increase in sun exposure, and residence in the Sunbelt. These were findings that were suggestive but did not reach conventional statistical significance. These findings are consistent with the postulated mechanism for this unusual syndrome: acute diffuse crystallization of uric acid in renal tubules.

A retrospective cohort study using 1980-1984 Medicaid billing data from 3 US states was performed to assess the relative risk of hypersensitivity reactions from different nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID). Comparing tolmetin sodium to other NSAID, pooling the data across the 3 US states using the Mantel-Haenszel procedure, gave an overall relative risk (95% confidence interval) of 1.1 (0.8-1.4). After adjusting for multiple potential confounding variables using logistic regression, an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.9 (0.6-1.2) was observed. These data do not confirm previous suggestions that use of tolmetin is associated with a higher risk of hypersensitivity reactions than use of other NSAID.

A retrospective cohort study was performed to assess the relative risk of upper gastrointestinal (UGI) tract bleeding from two formulations of potassium chloride. Relevant information was obtained from 1980 through 1984 Medicaid billing data from the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, and Ohio. After patients with a history of UGI tract bleeding prior to their first prescription for either of the two potassium chloride preparations under study were excluded, data were analyzed for 28,790 patients (143,512 patient-months) dispensed a microencapsulated formulation exclusively and 76,118 patients (560,341 patient-months) dispensed a wax-matrix formulation exclusively. The risk of UGI tract bleeding within 30 days after each prescription for the drug of interest was examined. After sampling from the undiseased study subjects and adjusting for multiple potential confounding variables using logistic regression, an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.67 (0.52 to 0.85) was observed.