Quinolones and risk of acute liver failure

Quinolones, are a class of widely used and popular powerful antibiotics with broad coverage. RSI investigators, Mohamed Taher, Franco Momoli, Donald Mattison and Daniel Krewski, recently published a series of three papers on investigating the risk of acute liver failure (ALF) following systemic administration of quinolones, based on a synthesis of evidence from available clinical trials, the US FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), and a large US database of electronic health records (EHR).  

Although clinical trials provided little evidence of an increased risk, there were reports in FAERS of quinolone-linked ALF cases. Although the primary EHR analysis did not reveal an overall association between quinolones as a class and ALF risk, a possible risk was identified among those with no or few comorbidities, those ≤ 60 years of age, women, men, African Americans, and Caucasians.

The authors noted that elevated risks seen in some subgroups warrant further investigation.