Assessing the risk of tumor lysis syndrome associated with the use of antineoplastic agents: a real-world pharmacovigilance study based on the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System database.

Background: The use of antineoplastic agents is one of the important triggers of tumor lysis syndrome (TLS), but there is still a lack of comprehensive understanding of antineoplastic agents that may trigger TLS and the TLS risk differences between different antineoplastic agents.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the TLS risk of different antineoplastic agents and provide reference information for clinical practice.

Design: Real-world adverse events data in the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database were used as the basis for the disproportionality analysis.

Methods: We reviewed the TLS reports in the FAERS database from 2004 to 2022 to summarize an antineoplastic agent list that was reported to trigger TLS, based on which we conducted disproportionality analysis to assess the TLS risk of each antineoplastic agent.

Results: In all, 164 antineoplastic agents were reported to trigger TLS. On the whole, rituximab was the most reported antineoplastic agent in TLS reports, followed by cyclophosphamide, venetoclax, doxorubicin, and etoposide, while tagraxofusp was the antineoplastic agent with the highest adverse drug reaction (ADR) signal strength in signal detection, followed by floxuridine, pentostatin, tebentafusp, and venetoclax. Integrating ADR signal detection results, 129 of 164 antineoplastic agents showed at least one positive ADR signal, and six antineoplastic agents (bevacizumab, carboplatin, cisplatin, fluorouracil, lenvatinib, and paclitaxel) have the highest total number of positive signals. Further classifying the 164 antineoplastic agents into 46 chemical subgroups to conduct ADR signal detection, nitrogen mustard analogs were the most reported antineoplastic agent subclasses, followed by clusters of differentiation 20 inhibitors, and pyrimidine analogs, while clusters of differentiation 22 inhibitors were the antineoplastic agent subclass with the highest ADR signal strength, followed by podophyllotoxin derivatives and actinomycines.

Conclusion: Our study showed the TLS risk characteristics of 164 antineoplastic agents by detecting and integrating ADR signals, which may help to optimize clinical practice.