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An Evaluation of “Drug Ineffective” Postmarketing Reports in Drug Safety Surveillance

Journal Article · · Drugs - real world outcomes
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2]
  1. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Silver Spring, MD (United States). Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology; Office of Safety II, Tokyo (Japan). Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency; DOE/OSTI
  2. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Silver Spring, MD (United States). Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology

Introduction: The most commonly reported adverse event, based on frequency of Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) preferred terms (PTs), in the US FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database is ‘‘drug ineffective’’ (DI). This study aimed to describe the DI reports and provide data to support recommendations on how to best evaluate these reports. Methods: We characterized all FAERS reports coded with the MedDRA PT ‘‘drug ineffective’’ received between 1 September 2012 and 31 August 2016 using all other FAERS reports as a comparator. Additionally, we conducted a manual evaluation to identify informative data elements in the report narratives. Results: During the study period, 247,513 (6.4% of all FAERS reports) DI reports were entered in FAERS. Compared with non-DI reports, DI reports were more likely to be reported by consumers (69.8 vs. 48.1%) and less likely to report a serious outcome (26.2 vs. 56.3%). Most DI reports (88%) were from the USA. Manual evaluation of 552 sample US reports identified 43 reports (7.8%) deemed ‘‘useful’’; a higher proportion of ‘‘useful’’ reports provided a batch or lot number (39.5 vs. 17.2%) and were coded with additional PTs beyond ‘‘drug ineffective’’ (83.7 vs. 59.2%), the most frequent of which were ‘‘product quality issue’’ (23.3%) and ‘‘product substitution issue’’ (18.6%). Conclusions: DI was the most frequently reported adverse event in the FAERS database; however, the yield from these reports in terms of usefulness from a pharmacovigilance perspective was low. Efficient strategies are needed to identify which DI reports are more likely to contain useful information.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0014664
OSTI ID:
1630012
Journal Information:
Drugs - real world outcomes, Journal Name: Drugs - real world outcomes Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 5; ISSN 2199-1154
Publisher:
SpringerCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (7)

Clinicians’ Expectations of the Benefits and Harms of Treatments, Screening, and Tests: A Systematic Review journal March 2017
Post-market drug safety evidence sources: an analysis of FDA drug safety communications: LETTER TO THE EDITOR journal October 2012
Evaluation of FDA safety-related drug label changes in 2010: DRUG LABEL CHANGE EVALUATION journal January 2013
Patients’ Expectations of the Benefits and Harms of Treatments, Screening, and Tests: A Systematic Review journal February 2015
Patient and Physician Expectations of Add-On Treatment With Golimumab for Rheumatoid Arthritis: Relationships Between Expectations and Clinical and Quality of Life Outcomes: Relationships Between Expectations and Golimumab Treatment Outcomes journal November 2014
Patterns in spontaneous adverse event reporting among branded and generic antiepileptic drugs journal April 2015
Role of Postmarketing Surveillance in Contemporary Medicine journal February 2011

Cited By (7)

Healthcare professionals’ perspective can guide post-marketing surveillance of artemisinin-based combination therapy in Uganda journal February 2020
Characteristics and trends of spontaneous reporting of therapeutic ineffectiveness in South Korea from 2000 to 2016 journal February 2019
Adverse Events Due to Insomnia Drugs Reported in a Regulatory Database and Online Patient Reviews: Comparative Study journal January 2019
Real‐World Data Approaches for Early Detection of Potential Safety and Effectiveness Signals for Generic Substitution: A Metoprolol Extended‐Release Case Study journal May 2019
Toxicities with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: Emerging Priorities From Disproportionality Analysis of the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System journal March 2019
Adverse Drug Reaction Case Safety Practices in Large Biopharmaceutical Organizations from 2007 to 2017: An Industry Survey journal October 2019
Relationship between adverse drug reactions to antibacterial agents and the Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase-producing (KPC) Klebsiella pneumoniae outbreak: insight from a pharmacovigilance study journal November 2019

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