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Drug-Induced Dental Caries: A Disproportionality Analysis Using Data from VigiBase
Emilie Patras de Campaigno1, Inès Kebir1, Jean-Louis Montastruc1,2,3,4,5
1Service de Pharmacologie Médicale et Clinique, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse, 31000, Toulouse, France.
Introduction:
Dental caries is defined as a pathological breakdown of the tooth. It is an infectious phenomenon involving a multifactorial aetiology. The impact of drugs on cariogenic risk has been poorly investigated.
Objectives:
In this study, we identified drugs suspected to induce dental caries as adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and then studied a possible pathogenic mechanism for each drug that had a statistically significant disproportionality.
Methods:
We extracted individual case safety reports of dental caries associated with drugs from VigiBase® (the World Health Organization global individual case safety report database). We calculated disproportionality for each drug with a reporting odds ratio (ROR) and 99% confidence interval. We analysed the pharmacodynamics of each drug that had a statistically significant disproportionality.
Results:
In VigiBase®, 5229 safety reports for dental caries concerning 733 drugs were identified. Among these drugs, 88 had a significant ROR, and for 65 of them (73.9%), no information about dental caries was found in the summaries of the product characteristics, the Micromedex® DRUGDEX, or the Martindale databases. Regarding the pharmacological classes of drugs involved in dental caries, we identified bisphosphonates, atropinic drugs, antidepressants, corticoids, immunomodulating drugs, antipsychotics, antiepileptics, opioids and β2-adrenoreceptor agonist drugs. Regarding possible pathogenic mechanisms for these drugs, we identified changes in salivary flow/composition for 54 drugs (61.4%), bone metabolism changes for 31 drugs (35.2%), hyperglycaemia for 32 drugs (36.4%) and/or immunosuppression for 23 drugs (26.1%). For nine drugs (10.2%), the mechanism was unclear.
Conclusion:
We identified 88 drugs with a significant positive disproportionality for dental caries. Special attention has to be paid to bisphosphonates, atropinic drugs, immunosuppressants and drugs causing hyperglycaemia.
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