Antifungal therapy with azoles induced the syndrome of acquired apparent mineralocorticoid excess: A literature and database analysis.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE\nWe aimed to estimate the risk of varied antifungal therapy with azoles causing the syndrome of acquired apparent mineralocorticoid excess (AME) in the real-world practice.\n\n\nMETHODS\nFirst, we conducted a disproportionality analysis based on data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database to characterize the signal differences of triazoles - related AME. Second, a systematic review was conducted, and to describe clinical features of AME cases reported in clinical practice.\n\n\nRESULTS\nIn the FAERS database, we identified 27 cases of triazoles - AME, posaconazole [ROR=865.37; 95%CI (464.14; 1613.45)] and itraconazole [ROR=556.21; 95% (303.05; 1020.85)] significantly increased the risk of AME events, while fluconazole, voriconazole and isavuconazole did not affect any of the mineralocorticoid excess targets. 18 studies with 39 cases raised evidence of AME following posaconazole and itraconazole treatment, and another 27 cases were identified by analysis of the description of clinical features in FAERS database. The average age of 66 patients was 55.5 years (6∼87 years). AME mainly occurs in patients with posaconazole concentrations above 3 μg/mL (mean=4.4μg/mL, range 1.8∼9.5μg/mL), and is less likely to occur when levels are below 2 μg/mL (6%). The median time to event onset was 11.5 weeks, and 50% of the adverse events occurred within 3 months for posaconazole.\n\n\nCONCLUSION\nThe presented study supports very recent findings that posaconazole and itraconazole but not the other three azole antifungals investigated are associated with AME and the effects were dose-dependent, which allows for a dose de-escalation strategy and for substitution with fluconazole, isavuconazole or voriconazole to resolve the adverse effects.