Comparison of Adverse Drug Reactions for Patients Treated with Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors: Data Mining of the Public Version of the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS)

The consecutive approvals of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been changing the landscape of treatment strategy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Currently, three TKIs are available worldwide, including imatinib (Glivec/Gleevec; Novartis Pharmaceuticals, East hanover, NJ), nilotinib (Tasigna; Novartis Pharmaceuticals) and dasatinib (Sprycel; Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, NJ). Although second generation TKIs (nilotinib and dasatinib) have shown their efficacy and safety in recent clinical trials, additional data are needed for better understanding and differences in their safety profiles may be helpful when choosing a TKI. We compared the adverse drug reactions (ADRs) for patients treated with three TKIs using spontaneous adverse event reporting after approval to investigate the characteristics of safety profiles.

To compare adverse events characteristics among three TKIs, the case/noncase adverse events reports associated with TKIs use were retrieved from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) between 2004 and 2010. We calculated the reporting odds ratio (ROR), which is known as one of data mining algorithms for signal detection techniques of ADRs, characterized by providing a fast and cost-efficient way of detecting possible ADR signals. All events in the AERS have been coded for data entry in accordance with the standardized terminology, known as Preferred Terms, in the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities. The ROR is similar to the idea of odds ratio, calculating the odds of exposure of the suspected drug in patients who had events divided by the odds of exposure of the suspected drug in those without events. The ROR -1.96 standard error greater than 1 with at least 4 ADR reports was used as a signal criterion in this study.

We identified 18,979 ADRs for imatinib, 5,388 ADRs for nilotinib, and 2,482 ADRs for dasatinib. The number of ADRs flagged by our signal criterion was 91 for imatinib, 82 for nilotinib, and 109 for dasatinib. Top 10 lists of ADRs with higher ROR are shown in Table for each TKI. The safety profiles were almost different among TKIs. ADRs related to skin and hepatic function were noted for imatinib, whereas ADRs related to cardiac events were prominent for nilotinib, and ADRs related to lymphocytosis, edema and effusion were noticeable for dasatinib. The different dosing requirements of dasatinib and nilotinib may be an additional factor of ADRs.

ADRs reported in the AERS for each TKI were relatively consistent with known characteristics of ADRs reported in previous clinical trials. Our information would be supportive data for choosing a TKI for CML patients based on comorbidities and drug safety profiles. The choice of therapy in a given patient with CML may depend on age, past history and comorbidities as well as disease risk score and mutational analysis.

Oshima:Sanofi Aventis: Employment.