An investigation into the avoidability of adverse drug reactions using the LAAT and modified Hallas tools

The determination of causality of drug induced liver injury in patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome

Background

Drug induced liver injury (DILI) is a rising morbidity amongst patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome. The updated RUCAM causality assessment scale is validated for use in the general population, but its utility for causality determination in cohorts of patients with COVID-19 and DILI remains uncertain.

Methods

This retrospective study was comprised of COVID-19 patients presenting with suspected DILI to the emergency department of Weill Cornell medicine-affiliated Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar. All cases that met the inclusion criteria were comparatively adjudicated by two independent rating pairs (2 clinical pharmacist and 2 physicians) utilizing the updated RUCAM scale to assess the likelihood of DILI.

Results

A total of 72 patients (mean age 48.96 (SD ± 10.21) years) were examined for the determination of DILI causality. The majority had probability likelihood of “possible” or “probable” by the updated RUCAM scale. Azithromycin was the most commonly reported drug as a cause of DILI. The median R-ratio was 4.74 which correspond to a mixed liver injury phenotype. The overall Krippendorf’s kappa was 0.52; with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.79 (IQR 0.72–0.85). The proportion of exact pairwise agreement and disagreement between the rating pairs were 64.4%, kappa 0.269 (ICC 0.28 [0.18, 0.40]) and kappa 0.45 (ICC 0.43 [0.29–0.57]), respectively.

Conclusion

In a cohort of patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome, we found the updated RUCAM scale to be useful in establishing “possible” or “probable” DILI likelihood as evident by the respective kappa values; this results if validated by larger sample sized studies will extend the clinical application of this universal tool for adjudication of DILI.

An investigation into the avoidability of drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) syndrome

Drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) syndrome is a rising morbidity amongst hospitalized patients. Whilst clinical protocols for the management of individual DRESS cases have been well established, determination of potential prevention of these cases by utilizing novel “avoidability” tools has remained unexplored. This retrospective study reviewed records of patients who presented to the emergency department of Weill Cornell Medicine-affiliated Hamad General Hospital, Doha Qatar with suspected DRESS syndrome. These cases were independently adjudicated (utilizing the RegiSCAR, and JSCAR tools) as DRESS-drug pairs by a team of two clinical pharmacists and two General Physicians. They were then rated for potential avoidability with the Liverpool adverse drug reactions avoidability tool (LAAT) by the same team of raters. A total of 16 patients satisfied RegiSCAR criteria for DRESS syndrome. The mean age of the study population was 41.5 years (SD ± 13.3). The study population was predominantly male (n = 12; [75%]). The median latent period from drug ingestion to clinical presentation was 14 days (interquartile range [IQR] 6.5, 29). The median RegiSCAR and J-SCAR scores were 6 (IQR 5, 6.8), 5 (IQR 4, 5.8) respectively. Utilizing the LAAT, about 60% of the DRESS syndrome-drug pairs were rated as “avoidable” (“probable” or “definite”). The overall Krippendorf’s alpha with the LAAT was 0.81 (SE 0.10, CI 0.59–1.00); with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.90 (CI 0.77, 0.96.). In a randomly selected cohort of DRESS syndrome-drug pairs, a significant proportion was potentially avoidable (“possibly” and “definitely”) utilizing the LAAT. This will need validation by larger sample-sized prospective studies utilizing the updated LAAT proposed by this study.

Avoidability of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) in an elderly hospital cohort with cases assessed for causality by the updated RUCAM score

Background

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) represents an increasing morbidity in the general population, but more so in the elderly cohort of patients. Despite this, the concept of its prevention through prospective analysis has largely remained unexamined. We evaluated the utility of recently validated adverse drug reactions (ADR) avoidability tool in a cohort of elderly patients with DILI.

Methods

We examined 38 DILI-drug pairs from n=38 patients in a prospective cohort of patients presenting with adverse drug reactions to a Weill Cornell-affiliated tertiary hospital between February 2019 and January 2020. DILI outcomes were adjudicated by the updated Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM). Two clinical pharmacologists and two general physicians utilized the Liverpool adverse drug reactions avoidability tool (LAAT) and the modified Hallas tools to rate the preventability of DILI-drug pairs. Inter-rater, exact agreement proportions, as well as intraclass correlation coefficients were generated and expressed as ordinal outcomes.

Results

The cases examined for the determination of DILI avoidability had probability likelihood of “probable” or “highly probable” by the updated RUCAM scale. Examination of the 38 DILI-drug pairs (n= 38 patients) resulted in a total of 152 ordinal outcome decisions. We found about 32.3% (50/152) and 34.2% (52/152) of DILI-drug pairs were rated as “avoidable” (“probable” or “definite”) by the LAAT and the modified Hallas tools respectively. The overall median Krippendorf’s kappa with the LAAT was 0.61 (SE 0.12, CI 0.36, 0.85) and for modified Hallas tool was 0.53 (SE 0.18; CI 0.16, 0.89). The inter-rater correlation coefficient (ICC) for the LAAT and modified Hallas were 0.50 [0.32, 0.65] and 0.63 [0.48, 0.76] respectively. Exact pairwise agreement was present in 30/38 (IQR 29.5, 34.5), and 28/38 (IQR 27.5-35.5) of DILI-ADR pairs using the LAAT and modified Hallas tools respectively.

Conclusion

We found a significant proportion of drug-induced liver injury adjudicated by the updated RUCAM scale in elderly hospitalized cohort of patients were avoidable with significant implication for therapeutic commissioning as well as cost effectiveness interventions in this cohort of patients.