PMID- 23602075 OWN - NLM STAT- MEDLINE DCOM- 20141023 LR - 20220331 IS - 1471-2318 (Electronic) IS - 1471-2318 (Linking) VI - 13 DP - 2013 Apr 20 TI - The association between serious upper gastrointestinal bleeding and incident bisphosphonate use: a population-based nested cohort study. PG - 36 LID - 10.1186/1471-2318-13-36 [doi] AB - BACKGROUND: Oral bisphosphonates are commonly used to prevent / treat osteoporosis. However, bisphosphonate treatment is not without risk and serious adverse effects, including upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) have been described. We sought to determine if new users of bisphosphonate drugs were more likely to suffer a serious UGIB within 120 days of drug initiation. METHODS: This was a population-based nested cohort study utilizing administrative healthcare data in British Columbia, Canada. Community based individuals >/= 65 years with a new prescription for a bisphosphonate between 1991 and 2007 were included. A multivariate logistic regression model was used to examine the relationship between older age and the development of a serious UGIB within 120 days of new exposure to oral bisphosphonate drugs. RESULTS: Within the exposure cohort (n = 26,223), 117 individuals had suffered a serious UGIB within 120 days of incident bisphosphonate use. Cases tended to be > 80 years old, and were significantly more likely to have had a past history of gastric ulcer disease, a remote history of serious UGIB, and had been dispensed proton pump inhibitor (PPI) medications (p < 0.001 for all comparisons). After adjustment for confounding covariates, those > 80 years were more than twice as likely to suffer a UGIB when compared to those