Antipsychotic drugs can cause some serious side effects, leading to physical morbidity and mortality in patients. The objective of this study is to investigate the adverse events occurring in trials of second-gen antibiotics.
This is a systematic review and meta-analysis, including randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from MEDLINE, Cochrane CENTRAL, Embase, BIOSIS, PubMed, and WHO. The researchers identified 597 RCTs consisting of 108,664 participants. A total of 314 trials with 67,642 participants with details of serious adverse events were available, and 88% of these were 13 weeks or shorter in duration. The primary outcome was the incidence of serious adverse events.
The researchers discovered at least one somatic serious adverse event in 698-862 (1.63-2.02%) of the 42,600 patients on antibiotics and 343-419 (1.37-1.67%) of 25,042 patients placed on placebo. The odds ratio, based on the minimum and maximum estimate, was 1.24 for both the groups. The predefined subgroup analysis identified that the risk of adverse events was larger in older patients and children than in adults.
The research concluded that antipsychotics caused short-term severe adverse events both during and independent of treatment. The effect was more profound in older adults. Therefore, clinicians should pay close attention when using antipsychotics to treat the older population.
Ref: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30223-8/fulltext
