We’ve been hearing about elevated incidence of connective-tissue disorders in patients having been prescribed fluoroquinolones for quite some time, primarily in the context of tendonopathies. Now, with aortic dissection.
The differences are quite small, but probably real. This retrospective case-crossover from Taiwan included 1,213 patients hospitalized with aortic pathology, and compared their fluoroquinolone exposure with those who did not experience aortic dissection despite similar disease risk scores from a national database. Using their time-period referent design, patients were about twice as likely to have been exposed to a fluoroquinolone in the aortic pathology group.
This isn’t the only recent look at the association between fluoroquinolone exposure and aortic pathology. Combine this with the profound impact on gastrointestinal flora these broad-spectrum antibiotics have, and the reasons are just piling up to avoid fluoroquinolones whenever clinically reasonable.
“Oral Fluoroquinolone and the Risk of Aortic Dissection”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30213330