A new analytic tool developed to assess safe use recommendations.

View Abstract

PURPOSE

Develop a flexible analytic tool for the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Sentinel System to assess adherence to safe use recommendations with two capabilities: characterize adherence to patient monitoring recommendations for a drug, and characterize concomitant medication use before, during, and/or after drug therapy.

METHODS

We applied the tool in the Sentinel Distributed Database to assess adherence to the labeled recommendation that patients treated with dronedarone undergo electrocardiogram (ECG) testing no less often than every 3 months. Measures of length of treatment, time to first ECG, number of ECGs, and time between ECGs were assessed. We also assessed concomitant use of contraception among female users of mycophenolate per label recommendations (concomitancy 4 weeks before through 6 weeks after discontinuation of mycophenolate). Unadjusted results were stratified by age, month-year, and sex.

RESULTS

We identified 21 457 new episodes of dronedarone use of greater than or equal to 90 days (July 2009 to September 2015); 86% had greater than or equal to one ECG, and 22% met the recommendation of an ECG no less often than every 3 months. We identified 21 942 new episodes of mycophenolate use among females 12 to 55 years (January 2016 to September 2015); 16% had greater than or equal to 1 day of concomitant contraception dispensed, 12% had concomitant contraception use for greater than or equal to 50% of the 4 weeks before initiation through 6 weeks after mycophenolate; younger females had more concomitancy. These results may be underestimates as the analyses are limited to claims data.

CONCLUSIONS

We developed a tool for use in databases formatted to the Sentinel Common Data Model that can assess adherence to safe use recommendations involving patient monitoring and concomitant drug use over time.

Abbreviation
Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf
Publication Date
2019-02-12
Pubmed ID
30747473
Medium
Print-Electronic
Full Title
A new analytic tool developed to assess safe use recommendations.
Authors
Cocoros NM, Wagner A, Haynes K, Petrone AB, Fazio-Eynullayeva E, Ding Y, Izem R, Lee JY, Major JM, Nguyen M, Ju J