The Effectiveness of an Educational Brochure as a Risk Minimization Activity to Communicate Important Rare Adverse Events to Health-Care Professionals.

INTRODUCTION: Educational brochures are an important tool for communicating risk to health-care professionals. It is important to evaluate the impact of any risk minimization tool to understand the effectiveness of the strategy. The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness (i.e., respondents' awareness and understanding of the communication) of a targeted educational brochure distributed to health-care professionals (HCPs) as a risk minimization strategy for the communication of new rare and important adverse events (AEs). METHODS: A prospective, non-interventional, online survey was performed following distribution of a specifically designed brochure highlighting new and important adverse events to a targeted HCP population, consisting of known users of the target medicine, as represented by a commercial database. Predefined multiple-choice survey questions assessed overall HCP awareness of the brochure and understanding and retention of information in those HCPs who reported receiving the brochure. RESULTS: The educational brochure was sent to a total of 565 HCPs; 121 (21.4%) responded to the survey. The majority of respondents (95.0%) had previously prescribed or dispensed the target medicine. In all, 88 (72.7%) respondents said they had received the educational brochure, of whom 95.5% stated they had at least scanned the main points. More participants who had received the brochure (86.4% to 96.6%) answered the five individual survey questions correctly compared with those who did not (51.5% to 97.0%); this was significant for four out of five questions (P ≤ 0.005). Significantly more HCPs who received the brochure achieved the predefined pass rate (at least four of five questions answered correctly) compared with HCPs who did not receive the brochure (93.2% vs 57.6%, respectively; P = 0.000003). CONCLUSIONS: Distribution of targeted educational brochures may be an effective risk minimization strategy to raise HCP awareness of new rare and important AEs; educational brochures may also be an effective channel for sharing information on how these AEs can be best managed and on the importance and means of reporting AEs. FUNDING: Celgene Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia.

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy in lamotrigine randomized-controlled trials.

PURPOSE: Nonrandomized studies of the relationship of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) with sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) may be susceptible to confounding by tonic-clonic seizure frequency, polypharmacy, and other potential risk factors for SUDEP. We evaluated the risk of SUDEP with lamotrigine (LTG) compared to active comparators and placebo in randomized controlled clinical trials conducted by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) between 1984 and 2009. METHODS: Among 7,774 subjects in 42 randomized clinical trials, there were 39 all-cause deaths. Ten deaths occurred >2 weeks after discontinuation of study medication and were excluded. Narrative summaries of deaths were independently reviewed by three clinical experts (TT, LH, DF), who were blinded to randomized treatment arm. The risk of definite or probable SUDEP was compared between treatment arms for each trial type (placebo-controlled, active-comparator, crossover), using exact statistical methods. KEY FINDINGS: Of 29 on-treatment deaths, eight were definite/probable SUDEP, four were possible SUDEP, and 17 were non-SUDEP. The overall, unadjusted rate of definite/probable SUDEP for LTG was 2.2 events per 1,000-patient years (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.70-5.4). The odds ratios (OR) for on-treatment, definite/probable SUDEP in LTG arms relative to comparator arms, adjusted for length of exposure and trial, were the following: placebo-controlled, OR 0.22 (95% CI 0.00-3.14; p = 0.26); active-comparator, OR 2.18 (95% CI 0.17-117; p = 0.89); and placebo-controlled cross-over, OR 1.08 (95% CI 0.00-42.2; p = 1.0). SIGNIFICANCE: There was no statistically significant difference in rate of SUDEP between LTG and comparator groups. However, the CIs were wide and a clinically important effect cannot be excluded.