![Antidepressants Up Surgical Risks Antidepressants Up Surgical Risks](https://www.medindia.net/afp/images/Health-US-medicine-psychology-141516.jpg)
"There have been small studies that suggested there was a problem, but it has never been well-proven," lead author Andrew D. Auerbach, MD, MPH, a UCSF professor of medicine, said.
"With this huge data set, we feel confident in saying that SSRIs are associated with about a 10 percent increased risk for these adverse outcomes."
The researchers noted that patients on SSRIs are more likely to have conditions that in themselves increase surgical risk, like obesity, chronic pulmonary disease and depression.
To address the question of whether these factors may have accounted for the differences in outcomes, they retrospectively matched patients who had taken SSRIs with patients who were not taking the drugs.
After matching and controlling for variables like age, gender, medical condition and depression, they found that patients on SSRIs still were at increased risk.
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"This was not the case. These drugs are almost never used acutely. They are prescribed for chronic conditions such as depression, almost always for long-term use," said Auerbach.
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Their results have been published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Source-ANI