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Comparing Time to Adverse Drug Reaction Signals in a Spontaneous Reporting Database and a Claims Database: A Case Study of Rofecoxib-Induced Myocardial Infarction and Rosiglitazone-Induced Heart Failure Signals in Australia

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Abstract

Introduction

The objective of post-marketing surveillance of medicines is to rapidly detect adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Early ADR detection will enable policy makers and health professionals to recognise adverse events that may not have been identified in pre-marketing clinical trials. Multiple methods exist for ADR signal detection. Traditional quantitative methods employed in spontaneous reports data have include reporting odds ratio (ROR), proportional reporting ratio (PRR) and Bayesian techniques. With the development of administrative health claims databases, additional methods such as sequence symmetry analysis (SSA) may be able to be employed routinely to confirm ADR signals.

Objective and Method

We tested the time to signal detection of quantitative ADR signalling methods in a health claims database (SSA) and in a spontaneous reporting database (ROR, PRR, Bayesian confidence propagation neural network) for rofecoxib-induced myocardial infarction and rosiglitazone-induced heart failure.

Results

This study demonstrated that all four signalling methods detected safety signals within 1–3 years of market entry or subsidisation of the medicines, and for both cases the signals were detected before post-marketing clinical trial results. By contrast, the trial results and subsequent warning or withdrawal were published 5–7 years after first marketing of these medicines.

Conclusion

This case study highlights that a post-marketing quantitative method utilising administrative claims data can be a complementary tool to traditional quantitative methods employed in spontaneous reports that may help to verify safety signals detected in spontaneous reporting data.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Australian Government Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Therapeutic Goods Administration for providing the data used in this study. No sources of funding were used in the preparation of this manuscript and the research. The authors, Izyan A. Wahab, Nicole L. Pratt, Lisa E. Kalisch and Elizabeth E. Roughead, have no conflicts of interest relevant to this study. The MedDRA® trademark is owned by the International Federation of Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) on behalf of the International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH).

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A.Wahab, I., Pratt, N.L., Kalisch, L.M. et al. Comparing Time to Adverse Drug Reaction Signals in a Spontaneous Reporting Database and a Claims Database: A Case Study of Rofecoxib-Induced Myocardial Infarction and Rosiglitazone-Induced Heart Failure Signals in Australia. Drug Saf 37, 53–64 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-013-0124-9

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