Korean patients with IBD are at increased risk for overall, intestinal and haematological cancer.

The recent incidence of IBD in South Korea has been the highest in East Asia. Patients who had been diagnosed recently with IBD showed lower rates of surgery and higher rates of immunomodulator and biologic use compared to those reported ever in South Korea.

OBJECTIVE Dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors (DPP-4i) are useful incretin-based antidiabetes drugs. However, there is a concern that DPP-4i may adversely impact the exocrine pancreas, owing to their pleiotropic effects. In this study, we investigated whether DPP-4i are associated with pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer using a nationwide population-based cohort study. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We included patients newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who were treated with antidiabetes drugs (n = 33,208) from 2007 to 2013. The data were obtained from the Korean National Health Insurance Service–Health Screening Cohort database (n = 514,866). Risk was estimated using a Cox proportional hazards model with time-dependent covariates. A 6-month lag time was used to account for a possible latency time. The risk across various time segments since the first prescription of DPP-4i was also analyzed. RESULTS Out of 33,208 subjects, 10,218 were new users of DPP-4i and 22,990 were new users of other antidiabetes drugs. DPP-4i significantly increased the risks of pancreatitis (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.24, 95% CI 1.01–1.52; P = 0.037) and pancreatic cancer (aHR 1.81, 95% CI 1.16–2.82; P = 0.009) with a 6-month drug use lag period. The risk of pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer was generally consistent in the first 12 months and 1 year after the initial prescription without showing an increasing trend according to exposure duration. CONCLUSIONS DPP-4i use is associated with increased risks of pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. However, the absence of increasing trend according to exposure duration suggests the chances of reverse causality, and long-term pancreatic safety of DPP-4i has to be further investigated.

Cefazolin might be recommended as an adequate and better-tolerated treatment for MSSA bacteraemia in the absence of CIE.