Accutane and IBD: Doctors May Not Have Made the Connection

Salt Lake City, UTWhen it comes to Accutane side effects, things might not be as simple as determining that a patient took Accutane acne medication and then suffered inflammatory bowel disease. In fact, doctors may not make a link between a patient developing the condition and Accutane medication. This means that patients might have to alert their doctor to the possibility that exposure to Accutane medication resulted in development of inflammatory bowel disease.

Patients who took Accutane and developed inflammatory bowel disease should not expect that their doctor will connect the two. Part of the reason the connection might not be made is that inflammatory bowel disease could take up to three or four years to develop, making it difficult to link Accutane to the condition. Therefore, it is important that patients who develop inflammatory bowel disease determine if they were ever on Accutane.

Just because it takes a while for the condition to develop does not mean that there is no link between the two.

A study, presented to the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in 2009, and reported in the Los Angeles Times (11/07/09), suggested a link between Accutane and inflammatory bowel disease. The study found the odds of developing inflammatory bowel disease was 1.68 times higher among patients who used isotretinoin than among patients who did not use the medication. Patients who filled four or more isotretinoin prescriptions had 2.67 times the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease.

The odds of developing ulcerative colitis were almost 4.5 times greater in patients who used isotretinoin than in patients who did not use the medication. [At the time of the Los Angeles Times article, the data from the study was considered preliminary because it was not published in a peer-reviewed journal.]

Inflammatory bowel disease is a condition in which the intestines become swollen, resulting in pain, cramping, diarrhea and bleeding. Patients who develop inflammatory bowel disease may require removal of part—or all—of their colon.

Accutane, known generically as isotretinoin, is designed to treat severe acne, although it is prescribed to treat more mild forms of acne as well. The drug was pulled off the market in June 2009, by maker Roche Holding, though generic forms of the drug remain on the market. When Accutane was pulled from the market, Roche said the decision was made because of market pressures, not because of safety concerns.