A Retrospective Analysis of Ibrutinib-Associated Pneumonia
Authored by Rohan Ramnarain Tyrosine kinase inhibitors and their modulation of
cancer cell proliferation may be associated with various adverse events
serious enough to consider a change in therapy. Specifically, pneumonia
rates among patients with cancer have been rising steadily for the last
decade, perhaps due to increased use of stronger, sometimes immune
modulating drugs such as ibrutinib. This particular agent targets
Bruton’s tyrosine kinase, which is expressed most prominently in B
cells, the cell from which most non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas and chronic
lymphocytic leukemia originate.
The FDA has a publically available database that
contains all adverse event reports from consumers, medwatch, and drug
companies. This database is known as the FDA Adverse Event Reporting
System (FAERS) and it contains over 10 million reports of adverse events
that have been de-identified for safety of the patients reporting the
adverse events. A subset of data from this database will look at the
incidence rate of pneumonia in patients who took ibrutinib for mantle
cell lymphoma, B-cell leukemia, and non-hodgkin’s lymphoma from 2010
through 2015. The incidence rate of pneumonia in ibrutinib will be
compared to all other tyrosine kinase inhibitors to determine whether
there is a significant increase of pneumonia incidence in ibrutinib
compared to other tyrosine kinase inhibitors. A proportional t-test
(p<0.05) will be used to determine significance.
Comments
Post a Comment