Association between domperidone use and adverse cardiovascular events: A nested case‐control and case‐time‐control study

PURPOSE: To assess the association between domperidone and adverse cardiovascular events. METHODS: We conducted nested case-control and case-time-control studies using Korea's healthcare database (2002-2015). We identified patients without history of hospitalization, cancer, or cardiovascular diseases in 2002. From our cohort, those diagnosed with an adverse cardiovascular event (case), composite of arrhythmia, hypertension, or acute myocardial infarction were matched to two controls using risk-set sampling on various sociodemographic variables. Exposure was assessed in the 1 to 7 days, or in the 1 to 7 days (hazard period) and 91 to 97 days (control period) prior to index date, in nested case-control and case-time control studies, respectively. We compared domperidone to metoclopramide or non-use and estimated odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) using conditional logistic regression. RESULTS: From 627 799 patients, we identified 71 555 cases and 141 833 controls. In the nested case-control study, while the risk of cardiovascular events was increased with domperidone (OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.28-1.47) compared to non-use, the risk was reduced (0.64, 0.57-0.72) compared to metoclopramide. In the case-time-control study, similar increased risk was found when compared to non-use (1.40, 1.29-1.52) but a reduced risk as compared with metoclopramide (0.63, 0.54-0.72). Risk of myocardial infarction associated with domperidone was highest (nested case-control: 1.94, 1.33-2.83; case-time-control: 1.91, 1.01-3.62) when compared to non-use but did not indicate an increased risk when compared to metoclopramide (nested case-control: 0.60, 0.32-1.13; case-time-control: 0.70, 0.25-1.98). CONCLUSION: Our findings support a positive association between domperidone and adverse cardiovascular events. However, domperidone may have a safer cardiovascular profile than metoclopramide.