Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul 21;142(3):303-305.
doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.048238. Epub 2020 May 22.

Cardiovascular Toxicities Associated With Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: An Analysis of the World Health Organization Pharmacovigilance Database

Lee S Nguyen  1   2 , Charles Dolladille  3 , Milou-Daniel Drici  4 , Charlotte Fenioux  1 , Joachim Alexandre  3 , Jean-Paul Mira  5 , Javid J Moslehi  6 , Dan M Roden  6   7 , Christian Funck-Brentano  1 , Joe-Elie Salem  1   6
Affiliations

Cardiovascular Toxicities Associated With Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: An Analysis of the World Health Organization Pharmacovigilance Database

Lee S Nguyen et al. Circulation. .
No abstract available

Keywords: azithromycin; cardiotoxicity; hydroxychloroquine; phamacovigilance.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure.
Figure.
Temporal evolution (last accessed March 1, 2020) of the information component (IC) for cardiovascular (CV) adverse drug reactions (ADR) significantly associated with hydroxychloroquine or azithromycin (see statistics below). Whiskers are IC025, IC975. IC025 and IC975 are the lower and upper end of the IC 95% credibility interval, respectively. Significance is IC025>0 (black line). LQT, long QT syndrome; TdP/VT, ventricular tachyarrhythmias (VT) including Torsades-de-Pointes (TdP). Years of first ADR report within VigiBase for hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were respectively 1967 and 1989 (A). Intersection for selected CV-ADR (IC025>0) in case reports from VigiBase, for hydroxychloroquine (B) and azithromycin (C). Time to onset (in days) between first treatment intake and the CV-ADR associated with hydroxychloroquine or azithromycin (D). *Of the conduction disorders (n=75), 50/75 (67%) were atrioventricular blocks, 24/75 (32%) were bundle-branch blocks, and 1/75 (1%) was a sinus block. Time to onset data are available for hydroxychloroquine and LQT and/or TdP/VT (n=90), for hydroxychloroquine and conduction disorders (n=77), for hydroxychloroquine and heart failure (n=94), and for azithromycin and LQT and/or TdP/VT (n=70). Statistics:2 IC = log2[(Nobserved + 0.5)/(Nexpected + 0.5)], where Nexpected = (Ndrug × Nreaction)/Ntotal, with Nexpected being the number of individual case safety reports (ICSRs) expected for the drug-ADR combination; Nobserved being the actual number of ICSRs observed for the drug-ADR combination; Ndrug being the number of ICSRs for the drug, regardless of ADR; Nreaction being the number of ICSRs for the ADR, regardless of the drug; and Ntotal being the total number of ICSRs in the database.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Jakhar D, Kaur I. Potential of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 causes fears of shortages among people with systemic lupus erythematosus. Nat Med. 2020;26:632. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0853-0. - PubMed
    1. Salem JE, Manouchehri A, Moey M, Lebrun-Vignes B, Bastarache L, Pariente A, Gobert A, Spano JP, Balko JM, Bonaca MP, et al. Cardiovascular toxicities associated with immune checkpoint inhibitors: an observational, retrospective, pharmacovigilance study. Lancet Oncol 2018191579–1589doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30608-9 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Salem JE, Yang T, Moslehi JJ, Waintraub X, Gandjbakhch E, Bachelot A, Hidden-Lucet F, Hulot JS, Knollmann BC, Lebrun-Vignes B, et al. Androgenic effects on ventricular repolarization: a translational study from the International Pharmacovigilance Database to iPSC-Cardiomyocytes. Circulation 20191401070–1080doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.040162 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Woosley RL, Heise CW, Gallo T, Tate J, Woosley D, Romero KA. QTdrugs List. www.CredibleMeds.org. Accessed June 29, 2020.
    1. Funck-Brentano C, Salem JE, Nguyen LS, Drici MD, Roden DM. Response to the editorial “COVID-19 in patients with cardiovascular diseases”: Covid-19 treatment with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine and azithromycin: a potential risk of Torsades de Pointes. Arch Cardiovasc Dis 2020113367–368doi: 10.1016/j.acvd.2020.04.001 - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms