Use of Topical Prostaglandin Analogue not Associated with Risk of Spontaneous Abortion

Recent case reports suggest the use of topical prostaglandin analogues (PGAs) might increase the risk of spontaneous abortions in pregnant people who take these drugs for intraocular pressure control. However, because these reports are derived mainly from voluntary adverse drug reaction databases, they might be prone to reporting bias. A study was conducted to examine the risk of spontaneous abortions among pregnant people who take topical PGAs.

The PharMetrics Plus database (IQVIA) for health claims in the United States from 2006 to 2020 was used as the data source. The percentage of spontaneous abortions was quantified among patients aged 15 to 45 years who were pregnant and took a topical PGA medication during this period compared with a random sample of people in the database not taking a PGA agent. Diagnosis of spontaneous abortion was ascertained through procedure codes or codes from the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision.

The results of the study are:

• A total of 3881 people of reproductive age who were prescribed PGAs and 3881 control participants not taking PGAs were identified.
• Among the 3881 patients in the PGA cohort, 261 were pregnant and 26 had a spontaneous abortion code.
• Among the 26 individuals, 12 (4.6%) had a spontaneous abortion code within 90 days of the pregnancy code and had an overlapping prescription for a PGA. Among the 12 individuals, 5 (41.7%) were in the age category 40 to 45 years.
• In the control group, there were 801 pregnancies, 56 of which led to spontaneous abortions (7%), resulting in an increased risk of 2.4% (95% CI, −0.7% to 5.4%; P = .17).

Thus, the results of this case-series study suggest no association between use of PGAs and risk of spontaneous abortions. Given the nature of this study design and the potential for unmeasured confounding factors, these results could be explored further in future epidemiologic studies that can better control for potential confounding variables and more accurately ascertain spontaneous abortions through perinatal databases.

Reference:

Association of Topical Prostaglandin Analogue Use With Risk of Spontaneous Abortion by Mahyar Etminan, et al. published in the JAMA Ophthalmology.

doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2022.0628

Keywords:

Prostaglandin, analogue, use, associated, risk, spontaneous abortion, intraocular pressure, glaucoma, Mahyar Etminan, Lindsay Richter, Mohit Sodhi, Frederick S. Mikelberg