Multipurpose Databases

MULTIPURPOSE DATABASES

Large data sets based on demographic information, disease occurrences and prescribing information are now available from several sources for use by trained and competent researchers. We now have extensive populations in diverse geographical settings for whom routine information about demography, drug exposure and disease experience are available in reasonably standardised formats. We have skilled analysts avail-able to review such data sets for important causal associations between drugs and events. These infor-mation sets are extremely powerful tools and must be used with skill and great care lest the results reported turn out to be erroneous. In such circumstances great damage could be done both to public health and also to the data sets themselves. It is therefore crucially important that investigators ensure that validity of their observations by careful scrutiny of at least a sample (if not all) of the basic records. To rely solely on computer codes for disease identification without the ability to return to verify basic written records is likely to lead to significant potential for serious error. Failure to undertake proper validation could easily lead to inappropriate damage to the reputation of indi-vidual medicines, or even the parent data set itself.

Recently there have been some examples of conflicting conclusions emanating from different investigators reviewing the same topic from within the largest database in the United Kingdom, the General Practice Research Database. This may seem surprising at first sight. However, it must be clearly understood that the worldwide experience in this exciting area is confined to relatively small groups of investigators, as there are formidable logistical problems to over-come in entering and conducting research on these data resources. For example, drug-, symptom- and disease-codes tend to change with time during the years of data accrual. This is not territory for the amateur or the unwary! One simply cannot go to these extremely complex information systems and expect to perform high-quality research overnight. The issues are usually technically challenging and epidemiolog-ically extremely complex.

Classical epidemiology is well used to dealing with fixed properties of individual patients, such as sex, height, weight, parity, smoking habits and so on or one-off exposures to toxic substances, such as chem-icals or infective agents. It is not so comfortable dealing with intermittent exposures at varying doses that are usually the case in drug epidemiology stud-ies. There are some areas where the exposure status can be somewhat constant. Examples of these would be the use of oral contraceptives and hormone treat-ments (replacement therapies with oestrogens, insulin, thyroxine, etc.). Even here, however, patients regu-larly change individual preparations, and great care must be taken to ensure accuracy and fairness in data interpretation. In other areas intermittent exposures are the norm.

In embarking upon a drug safety study in a large database, the investigator must clearly specify the hypothesis to be tested. (Such databases are so complex as to be generally unsuitable for hypothesis generation except under very confined circumstances arising usually within an individual study.) Once one has defined the hypothesis, exposure and outcome status have to be assessed accurately. The nature of the study design has to be identified. Is it a follow-up study, a case–control study or will it be a nested case– control study within a large group of subjects exposed to an individual medicine or class of medicines?

Failure of clarity at this stage could doom the study from the onset. Investigators interested in a particular hypothesis can often be mesmerised by the apparent abundance of information available to them. They should keep in mind that it is crucial to restrict themselves to appropriate comparisons. Thus if one is looking at the effect of, say, hormone replace-ment therapy on osteoporosis, the relevant outcome measure available in such databases is generally a fracture. However, not all fractures are relevant. Indeed, many are irrelevant to the hypothesis, as they will have an obvious and sufficient cause, such as a road traffic or other accident, an underlying neoplasm or pre-existing bone disease. Similarly, not all expo-sures to hormones are relevant. For example, it would seem unlikely (biologically implausible) that a single prescription for such treatment would be relevant to the outcome of interest. Trained epidemiologists are used to thinking of chance, bias and confounding as explanations for any associations they see in data. Although the items mentioned above are forms of bias, they tend to be obscure to all but those trained in the complexities of pharmacoepidemiology. Yet they are crucial issues to consider before one embarks on a seemingly large and promising study. Reflect that a negative outcome to a project could be because the study drug does not cause the outcome of interest. However, it could also arise from the fact that there is so much ‘noise’ in the system that an investiga-tor cannot see the true link between drug and disease when it is in front of him because of inappropriate inclusions in the disease and drug exposure categories and inappropriate inclusions and exclusions in the comparator population. Finally, there is the problem of missing information found in all systems, yet requir-ing particularly careful handling in a multipurpose database. Such information rarely leads to a false-positive conclusion, but it could result in missing a key finding. The main safeguard here is familiarity with the data set itself.

Without due care and attention, the availability of more and more powerful information systems could lead to an epidemic of poorly undertaken studies that would reflect badly on the fledgling science of pharma-coepidemiology. This would be a matter of great regret, as the subject is of major importance for the future safety of patients, prescribers, dispensers and manu-facturers alike. All have different perspectives, yet all share a common goal of getting the safest medicines to the appropriate patients at the right dose and at the right time. For a guide to some of the less obvious pitfalls in this type of research, see the paper by Jick and colleagues in the Lancet (1998; 352: 1767–70).

The development of pharmacovigilance is now at a critical stage. With powerful new tools at our disposal we have at last the opportunity to provide the public with some of the reassurances it requires from the industry and the professions. Ironically, it has taken over 35 years since David Finney originally recom-mended this approach in a seminal article in the Jour-nal of Chronic Diseases (1965; 18: 77–98). It is crucial that we continue to meet this challenge with enthu-siasm and skill, seizing the opportunities that present in these powerful information systems and surmount-ing the local difficulties relating to anonymisation of data sets, scientific rigor and credibility. For once we in the United Kingdom are in possession of a world-beating facility for research in the form of the General Practice Research Database, due to the fore-sight of its founding practitioner, the commitment of large numbers of collaborating general practitioners, and the realisation among researchers and the Regu-latory Authority in the United Kingdom that this is a resource beyond value.

OVER-THE-COUNTER AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINES

Multipurpose databases generally concentrate infor-mation collection upon prescription medicines. Over-the-counter (OTC) and alternative medicines are excluded or dealt with in a non-standard manner. Whilst OTC medicines usually have been reviewed in detail when they were prescription medicines, the same cannot be said for alternative medicines such as herbal and homeopathic preparations. Many of these have been found to be associated with serious health hazards in the past, and some have also been found to interact with prescription medicines. We need some method other than relying solely on spon-taneous reporting systems to be reassured that these preparations are indeed acceptably safe. The result-ing system need not be as all embracing as the large databases; however, the work needs to be done, and done both rapidly and cost-efficiently in the near future. In the United Kingdom, the Herbal Medicines Advisory Committee has been established to advise the Licensing Authority directly on this issue.

NEW PRESCRIBERS

The large databases are perhaps best developed in the United Kingdom because of its unique feature of the general practitioner being the gateway through which patients progress to specialist care. As the system changes and others such as nurses and pharmacists begin to initiate primary prescriptions in measurable numbers, these systems could become less effective. There will have to be careful thought directed towards the best ways in which the relevant information can be captured economically to ensure the continuing maintenance and viability of the databases. This can most readily be achieved by channeling records of all prescriptions through a patient’s practitioner, thereby ensuring not only continuity of records but also safety in therapy. With advances in transferable electronic patient records and the use of a unique patient identi-fier, these tasks become easier, in theory at least.