Dm. Coulter et al., Antipsychotic drugs and heart muscle disorder in international pharmacovigilance: data mining study, BR MED J, 322(7296), 2001, pp. 1207-1209
Citations number
9
Categorie Soggetti
General & Internal Medicine","Medical Research General Topics
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.