Researchers identified 17 most potentially liver-toxic drugs in a Monday study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study authors said they ranked the drugs according to the rates of severe liver injury, though they could not determine if the 17 drugs caused the acute injury in every event.
According to their findings, 11 of the 17 drugs identified may have wrongly received a lower hepatotoxicity (potential to harm the liver) rank according to the current ranking system.
To establish drugs’ potential for liver toxicity, researchers have used case reports of liver toxicity listed on the National Institutes of Health LiverTox website. Case reports are detailed reports on an individual patient; they often describe a novel or unusual patient case. Doctors write case reports when encountering a unique or novel patient presentation in their clinics. Some doctors write case reports, and others do not.
This “undoubtedly leads to underreporting,” senior author Dr. Vincent Lo Re, III, associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Epoch Times.
Because the drug rankings are based on voluntary clinician reporting instead of large population studies, the toxicity profile of some drugs may be missed if the clinician does not publish a case report.
Hellbound and Down 