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Some observational studies have suggested that patients taking proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) are at increased risk for respiratory tract infections (RTIs). Now, using pooled data from the AstraZeneca safety database, investigators (company employees) have examined the incidence of community-acquired RTIs in randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of esomeprazole.
The investigators identified 24 relevant trials that included a total of 9602 patients exposed to esomeprazole (3826.8 patient-years) and 5500 patients who received placebo (1972.9 patient-years). They searched for mention of RTIs — or signs/symptoms thereof — as adverse events and calculated the cumulative frequency of first RTI occurrences over 180 days.
The risk for an…