Objective: Antiplatelet therapy is useful for infraction prevention. But, in elderly patients, adverse events are easily observed, owing to the decrease in metabolism and excretion of drugs. Furthermore, applying guidelines for medical care of each disease does not necessarily result in good conclusions. Therefore, we used Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database and assessed safety signals with signal detection about adverse events developed by the antiplatelet therapy in the elderly patients.
Methods: We analyzed all adverse events reported on ticlopidine hydrochloride that should be carefully administered, and clopidogrel, bisulfate and aspirin that are recommended as the alternative drugs. We used the proportional reporting ratio for a safety index of drugs.
Results: While some adverse events were expressed in only ticlopidine hydrochloride, bleeding signal was detected in all the subject agents. In addition, onset risk of ticlopidine hydrochloride was found to be the lowest value. Moreover, adverse events expressed in clopidogrel bisulfate and aspirin were of a wide-variety compared with ticlopidine hydrochloride.
Conclusion: It is necessary to carefully administer not only ticlopidine hydrochloride but also the alternative drugs to the elderly patients as indicated, and there is a need to pay careful attention to administration of the alternative drugs.
