Acute pancreatitis in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus treated with dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors

Dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP)-4 inhibitors are approved for use in monotherapy or in combination therapy for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus for <1 decade. However, numerous reports of DPP-4 inhibitors induced acute pancreatitis were made through the US Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System, and this led to a revision in the prescribing information for these drugs. Therefore, this study is designed to evaluate DPP-4 inhibitors induced acute pancreatitis via the spontaneous adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting system in a medical center. In four of 2305 ADR cases, it is suspected that DPP-4 inhibitors induced moderate to serious acute pancreatitis. Beyond drugs, other factors also contribute to acute pancreatitis and affect the possibility of ADRs assessed using the Naranjo algorithm. Finally, our results indicate that the incidence of DPP-4 inhibitors induced acute pancreatitis is low.