Introduction: Drug-induced neuropathies are mainly sensory and subacute. The pathophysiological mechanisms associated with them are not clearly established and few pharmacoepidemiologic studies are available.
Method: This study investigated spontaneous reports of peripheral neuropathies reported to the French Adverse Drug Reaction (pharmacovigilance) database over a ten-year period.
Results: Between January 1995 and April 2005, 1110 cases were reported, predominantly among men (60%). Patients' mean age was 53.6 years. Most of these reports concerned sensory neuropathies, and 538 (48%) cases were considered "serious". Neuropathies related to dermatologic drugs (mainly retinoids) were serious in 85.7% of cases. Reactions were tentatively attributed to the following pharmacological classes, in decreasing order: antiviral and antibacterial (43.6%), antineoplastic and immunosuppressant (15.9%), cardiovascular (15.9%), central nervous system (7.9%) and gastrointestinal and metabolism (4.8%) agents. Specific drugs suspected of causing neuropathies were stavudine (198 cases), didanosine (134), lamivudine (124), thalidomide (57), ritonavir (55), zalcitabine (53) and amiodarone (47). This study allowed us to consider whether 2 other drugs (allopurinol and flecainide acetate) might be related to the occurrence of neuropathies.
Discussion: This work points out the usefulness of spontaneous reports of adverse drug reactions to regional adverse drug reaction reporting centers to help determine the relative frequency of suspected reactions to different drugs and to help detect drugs not previously known to induce these reactions.