Age-Associated Risk of Liver-Related Adverse Drug Reactions

Area of Science:

• Pharmacovigilance
• Geriatric Medicine
• Hepatology

Background:

• Aging populations are often presumed more susceptible to adverse drug reactions (ADRs).
• Quantitative, big data evidence supporting age-associated risks for specific ADRs, like liver-related ADRs (L-ADRs), is limited.
• This study addresses the gap by investigating the relationship between age and L-ADR risk.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively assess the association between aging and the risk of developing liver-related adverse drug reactions (L-ADRs).
• To identify specific drug categories or individual drugs that pose a higher risk for L-ADRs in older adults.

Main Methods:

• Utilized spontaneous reporting data from the China National ADR Monitoring System (2012-2016).
• Employed risk ratio (RR) to evaluate L-ADR risk across different age groups.
• Used reporting odds ratio (ROR) to assess drug-specific and drug-category-specific correlations with L-ADR in older adults.

Main Results:

• Analyzed 64,702 L-ADR reports (ages 1-116, median 49).
• Found an exponential increase in L-ADR risk with age, with a 33% relative risk increase per decade.
• Identified antiarrhythmic (ROR 5.75), antilipemic (ROR 4.77), and antihypertensive (ROR 2.97) drugs as having high correlations with L-ADRs in older adults.
• Estimated the age cutoff for significantly increased L-ADR risk at 52.0 years (RR=1).

Conclusions:

• Aging is quantitatively confirmed as a significant risk factor for liver-related adverse drug reactions.
• A 33% increase in L-ADR relative risk is observed for every 10-year increase in age.
• Enhanced risk management strategies are crucial for older adults, particularly when prescribing drugs strongly associated with L-ADRs.