Because clinical trials are conducted under widely varying conditions, adverse reaction rates observed in the clinical trials of a drug cannot be directly compared to rates in the clinical trials of another drug and may not reflect the rates observed in practice.
Safety data for ambrisentan tablets are presented from two 12-week, placebo-controlled studies (ARIES-1 and ARIES-2) in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The exposure to ambrisentan in these studies ranged from 6 days to 100 days.
In ARIES-1 and ARIES-2, a total of 261 patients received ambrisentan tablets at doses of 2.5, 5, or 10 mg once daily and 132 patients received placebo. The adverse reactions that occurred in > 3% more patients receiving ambrisentan tablets than receiving placebo are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Adverse Reactions with Placebo-Adjusted Rates > 3% in ARIES-1 and ARIES-2 | Placebo (N = 132) | Ambrisentan Tablets (N = 261) |
Adverse Reaction | n (%) | n (%) | Placebo-adjusted (%) |
Peripheral edema | 14 (11) | 45 (17) | 6 |
Nasal congestion | 2 (2) | 15 (6) | 4 |
Sinusitis | 0 (0) | 8 (3) | 3 |
Flushing | 1 (1) | 10 (4) | 3 |
Most adverse drug reactions were mild to moderate and only nasal congestion was dose-dependent.
Few notable differences in the incidence of adverse reactions were observed for patients by age or sex. Peripheral edema was similar in younger patients (< 65 years) receiving ambrisentan tablets (14%; 29/205) or placebo (13%; 13/104), and was greater in elderly patients (≥ 65 years) receiving ambrisentan tablets (29%; 16/56) compared to placebo (4%; 1/28). The results of such subgroup analyses must be interpreted cautiously.
The incidence of treatment discontinuations due to adverse events other than those related to PAH during the clinical trials in patients with PAH was similar for ambrisentan tablets (2%; 5/261 patients) and placebo (2%; 3/132 patients). The incidence of patients with serious adverse events other than those related to PAH during the clinical trials in patients with PAH was similar for placebo (7%; 9/132 patients) and for ambrisentan tablets (5%; 13/261 patients).
During 12-week controlled clinical trials, the incidence of aminotransferase elevations > 3 x upper limit of normal (ULN) were 0% on ambrisentan tablets and 2.3% on placebo. In practice, cases of hepatic injury should be carefully evaluated for cause.