Enhancing adverse drug event detection in electronic health records using molecular structure similarity: application to pancreatitis.
BACKGROUND
Adverse drug events (ADEs) detection and assessment is at the center of pharmacovigilance. Data mining of systems, such as FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) and more recently, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), can aid in the automatic detection and analysis of ADEs. Although different data mining approaches have been shown to be valuable, it is still crucial to improve the quality of the generated signals.


OBJECTIVE
To leverage structural similarity by developing molecular fingerprint-based models (MFBMs) to strengthen ADE signals generated from EHR data.


METHODS
A reference standard of drugs known to be causally associated with the adverse event pancreatitis was used to create a MFBM. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) from the New York Presbyterian Hospital were mined to generate structured data. Disproportionality Analysis (DPA) was applied to the data, and 278 possible signals related to the ADE pancreatitis were detected. Candidate drugs associated with these signals were then assessed using the MFBM to find the most promising candidates based on structural similarity.


RESULTS
The use of MFBM as a means to strengthen or prioritize signals generated from the EHR significantly improved the detection accuracy of ADEs related to pancreatitis. MFBM also highlights the etiology of the ADE by identifying structurally similar drugs, which could follow a similar mechanism of action.


CONCLUSIONS
The method proposed in this paper provides evidence of being a promising adjunct to existing automated ADE detection and analysis approaches.
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America. sav7003@dbmi.columbia.edu
Santiago
S
Vilar
Rave
R
Harpaz
Lourdes
L
Santana
Eugenio
E
Uriarte
Carol
C
Friedman
D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010195:Pancreatitis / Q000139:chemically induced*; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000737:chemistry*; D012372:ROC Curve; D012015:Reference Standards
D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations