Antipsychotic drugs and heart muscle disorder in international pharmacovigilance: data mining study

Objectives To examine die relation between antipsychotic drugs and myocardi tis and cardiomyopathy. Design Data mining using bayesian statistics implemented in a neural networ k architecture. Setting International database on adverse drug reactions run by the World H ealth Organization programme for international drug monitoring. Main outcome measures Reports mentioning antipsychotic drugs, cardiomyopath y or myocarditis. Results A strong signal existed for an association between clozapine and ca rdiomyopathy and myocarditis. An association was also seen with other antip sychotics as a group. The association was based on sufficient cases with ad equate documentation and apparent lack of confounding to constitute a signa l. Associations between myocarditis or cardiomyopathy and lithium, chlorpro mazine, fluphenazine, haloperidol, and risperidone need further investigati on. Conclusions Some antipsychotic drugs seem to be linked to cardiomyopathy an d myocarditis, The study shows the potential of bayesian neural networks in analysing data on drug safety.