Psychiatric Adverse Reactions to Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase Inhibitors in Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Analysis of Spontaneous Reports Submitted to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System

Abstract

Background: The development of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) has improved the survival outcomes of patients with advanced ALK-rearranged non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The adverse events (AEs) related to ALK inhibitors are fairly well known; notably, about 20% of patients receiving lorlatinib experienced cognitive effects and behavioral alterations in pivotal trials. Therefore, psychiatric disorders could represent AEs of special interest for all ALK TKIs, deserving careful assessment in the post-marketing setting.

Objective: We conducted a real-world pharmacovigilance study on psychiatric AEs with marketed ALK inhibitors in subjects with advanced NSCLC.

Patients and methods: We performed an observational, retrospective analysis of spontaneous reports submitted to the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS, as of December 2020), selecting psychiatric AEs to ALK TKIs approved in NSCLC (crizotinib, ceritinib, alectinib, brigatinib, lorlatinib). These AEs were independently scrutinized by three oncologists applying predefined exclusion criteria, described in terms of clinical/demographic features and assessed for drug-related causality according to an adaptation of the WHO-UMC system, a standardized probabilistic algorithm.

Results: Among 584 reported psychiatric AEs, 95 cases were selected as potentially treatment related, with higher reporting frequency for lorlatinib (26, 2.8%), followed by brigatinib (10, 1.2%), alectinib (18, 0.7%), ceritinib (12, 0.6%), and crizotinib (29, 0.3%). Reported psychiatric symptoms were mood disorders (39), psychotic disorders (24), and anxiety, agitation, and irritability (25). In the majority (74%) of cases, psychiatric AEs were serious and required hospitalization in about 32% of patients; 15.8% of retained cases were considered as highly probable and 69.5% as probable. Drug discontinuation was recorded in 31.6% of the reported cases, with the highest proportion for lorlatinib (65.4%).

Conclusion: Notwithstanding limitations, our study found a higher proportion of psychiatric AEs with lorlatinib, but also raised the hypothesis of psychiatric reactions as a class effect of ALK TKIs.