Acute cholangitis and pancreatitis associated with sulindac (clinoril)

A 68-year-old man without previous hepatobiliary or pancreatic disease was admitted after five attacks of nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and high fever. Laboratory investigations indicated cholestatic liver disease and pancreatitis. For 1.5 years the patient had occasionally been taking a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, sulindac (clinoril, MSD, New York), for osteoarthritis. On suspicion of a drug-associated disease, a rechallenge experiment was performed with sulindac. Five hours after drug administration symptoms recurred. There was a pronounced increase in serum alkaline phosphatase and amylase. A liver biopsy 3 d later showed portal tract inflammatory infiltration and abnormal interlobular bile ducts with degeneration and necrosis of the epithelium and neutrophilic infiltration of the ducts. Sulindac-induced cholangitis has not been described previously. The pathogenetic mechanism is considered to be an immunoallergic idiosyncratic reaction to the active metabolite of sulindac absorbed by the bile duct epithelium. The lesion is apparently reversible.