Non-genetic factors associated with ACE-inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker-induced angioedema

Angioedema (AE) rarely occurs as a potentially life-threatening adverse drug reaction (ADR) to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB). The aim of the present study was to investigate non-genetic association factors with ACEi-/ARB-induced angioedema in the European ADR database EudraVigilance and the database of the vARIANCE study.

The cohort of the vARIANCE study comprised 114 patients who suffered from ACEi- or ARB-induced angioedema. In addition, 171 angioedema reports and 4650 reports on other ADRs of ACEi/ARB were identified in the ADR database EudraVigilance with the latter serving as a reference group. Odds ratios were calculated and a logistic regression analysis was performed using angioedema versus reference reports.

Increased age, smoking, allergies and a history of previous angioedema were identified as associated factors for ACEi-/ARB-induced angioedema. In most patients, the swelling affected the face, lips and tongue. In the vARIANCE study, about 70% of angioedema occurred after 1 year of treatment. For one in two patients in the vARIANCE study (84.2% with ACEi treatment) and one in three patients from the EudraVigilance reports (59.6% with ARB treatment), the angioedema resulted in hospitalization.

We found small to moderate associations with certain individual patient-related factors in this pharmaco-epidemiological study. As a future perspective, combining non-genetic association factors with corresponding genetic data might provide an option to compose stronger and individual risk scores.