title: Use of methimazole and risk of acute pancreatitis: A case-control study in Taiwan.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Some cases of acute pancreatitis have been reported to be associated with use of methimazole. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between use of methimazole and risk of acute pancreatitis on the basis of a systematic analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a population-based case-control study analyzing the database of the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program. There were 5764 individuals aged 20-84 years with a first attack of acute pancreatitis from 1998 to 2011 as the cases and 23,056 randomly selected sex- and age-matched individuals without acute pancreatitis as the controls. Use of methimazole was categorized as "never use" and "ever use." We estimated the relative risk of acute pancreatitis associated with the use of methimazole by calculating the odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) using a multivariable logistic regression model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After adjustment for confounding factors, the OR of acute pancreatitis was 0.91 in individuals with ever use of methimazole, when compared with individuals with never use of methimazole (95% CI, 0.60-1.38). Unlike methimazole use, alcohol-related disease, biliary stone, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and hypertriglyceridemia were factors significantly associated with acute pancreatitis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study does not detect a substantial association between the use of methimazole and risk of acute pancreatitis on the basis of systematic analysis. There appears to be a discrepancy between case reports and our systematic analysis about the association between the use of methimazole and risk of acute pancreatitis.
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, College of Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Hualien, Taiwan, China; Department of Family Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: Shih-Wei
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, College of Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Hualien, Taiwan, China; Department of Management Office for Health Data, China Medical University Hospital, Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: Cheng-Li
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan, China; Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Tzu Chi General Hospital, Taichung, Hualien, Taiwan, China; School of Chinese Medicine, Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Hualien, Taiwan, China.
authors.forename: Kuan-Fu
authors.initials: KF
authors.lastname: Liao
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008713:Methimazole / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010195:Pancreatitis / Q000139:chemically induced*; D013624:Taiwan; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D008713:Methimazole
keywords: Acute pancreatitis; alcoholism; biliary stone; diabetes mellitus; methimazole