About half of all patients admitted to hospitals in the U.S. receive acid-reducing drugs to curb heartburn and help prevent stomach bleeding. However, a new study suggests these drugs are making patients more vulnerable to infections that increase risk of death during hospital stay and pose more risk than symptoms they prevent.
According to a computer simulation based on real-world risk and benefit data, around 90 percent of patients who are prescribed these types of drugs have a higher risk of dying compared with those who don't take them. This risk comes from the fact that reducing stomach acid can increase susceptibility to infections, particularly pneumonia and C. diff, according to the Journal of General Internal Medicine study.
"Many patients who come into the hospital are on these medications, and we sometimes start them in the hospital to try to prevent gastrointestinal, or GI, bleeds," Matthew Pappas, MD, lead author of the study, said in a statement. "But other researchers have shown that these drugs seem to increase the risk of pneumonia and C. diff, two serious and potentially life-threatening infections that hospitalized patients are also at risk for. Our new model allows us to compare that increased risk with the risk of upper GI bleeding. In general, it shows us that we're exposing many inpatients to higher risk of death than they would otherwise have — and though it's not a big effect, it is a consistent effect."
Based on these findings, the authors conclude only very few hospital patients should continue taking or begin taking these drugs as a preventative measure against gastrointestinal bleeding.