Hepatotoxicity by Drugs: The Most Common Implicated Agents

• Main Author: Einar S. Björnsson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2016-02-01
• Series: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
• Subjects: hepatotoxicity; drugs; drug-induced liver injury; idiosyncratic
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/17/2/224

Idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is an underreported and underestimated adverse drug reaction. Information on the documented hepatotoxicity of drugs has recently been made available by a website that can be accessed in the public domain: LiverTox (http://livertox.nlm.nih.gov). According to critical analysis of the hepatotoxicity of drugs in LiverTox, 53% of drugs had at least one case report of convincing reports of liver injury. Only 48 drugs had more than 50 case reports of DILI. Amoxicillin-clavulanate is the most commonly implicated agent leading to DILI in the prospective series. In a recent prospective study, liver injury due to amoxicillin-clavulanate was found to occur in approximately one out of 2300 users. Drugs with the highest risk of DILI in this study were azathioprine and infliximab.