Factors predictive of treatment-emergent adverse events of prucalopride: an integrated analysis of four randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: This integrated analysis aimed to identify the factors associated with the most frequently re-ported treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) in Asian and non-Asian patients with chronic constipation (CC) who receive prucalopride or placebo over 12 weeks.

METHODS

Pooled data from four randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter, phase III studies (NCT00488137, NCT00483886, NCT00485940, and NCT01116206) on pa-tients treated with prucalopride 2 mg or placebo were ana-lyzed. The associations between predictors and TEAEs were evaluated based on a logistic regression model.

RESULTS

Overall, 1,821 patients (Asian, 26.1%; non-Asian, 73.9%) were analyzed. Prucalopride treatment was significantly as-sociated with diarrhea, headache, and nausea (p<0.001), but not with abdominal pain, compared with placebo. Differ-ences in the prevalence of TEAEs between prucalopride and placebo decreased greatly after the first day of treatment. Compared with non-Asians, Asians were more likely to expe-rience diarrhea and less likely to develop abdominal pain, headache, and nausea. Prior laxative use, CC duration, and body weight were not predictive of any of these TEAEs. Con-clusions Prucalopride treatment was positively associated with diarrhea, headache, and nausea. Asian patients tended to have a higher frequency of diarrhea but lower frequencies of headache, abdominal pain, and nausea compared with non-Asians. (Gut Liver, 2015;9208-213).