[Cutaneous changes occurring after taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs--five-years' retrospective studies]

In the last years we can observe an increase incidence of dermatoses after drug administration, which later require specialistic help and hospitalization. It especially concerns with nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (considering their widespread application, possibility of purchasing them without prescription and large media advertising. The authors of this article wanted to present the significance of this problem analysing a group of patients at the Department of Dermatology in Cracow in the years 1997-2001. Attention was paid to a variety of cutaneous changes after they had been treated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID). The dermatoses which are not commonly considered as drug related, have also been presented. In general, medical documentation of 193 patients being suspected of having symptoms of drug related character of cutaneous changes were presented. The given drug was recognized as being the cause of disease development based on the method recommended by the French Surveillance Network. In 31 patients a connection of the cutaneous changes with NSAID administration was proved. In the analysed group of patients, women dominated (61.3%), the mean age of the examined patients was 42 years. The increase in occurrence frequency of dermatoses after taking NSAID was observed in regard to all the hospitalized patients (from 0.48% in the year 1997 to 0.99% in the year 2001). From among the drugs responsible for causing cutaneous changes which required hospitalization, aspirin took the first place, pyralgin the second, and paracetamol the third one. Urticaria prevailed in cutaneous changes after having taken NSAID. More rarely other cutaneous changes, like erythema multiforme or drug induced exanthema, took place. The fact that various drugs often cause similar cutaneous changes and even the same drug can provoke different morphological reactions makes the diagnostic process of the described dermatoses extremely difficult.