Evaluation of Interstitial Lung Disease Complications Caused by Biologic Agents Using a Spontaneous Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Database

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a clinically relevant adverse event associated with biologic agent use. However, the current incidence of ILD remains unclear as large-scale risk assessments of biologic agents have not been conducted. The aim of this study was to clarify the association between biologic agent use and ILD development in clinical practice by detecting adverse event signals using a spontaneous adverse drug reaction database. The VigiBase database is used for spontaneous adverse event reporting. The analysis focused on nine biologics used to treat psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohn's disease. The safety of each biologic agent was evaluated using the information component signal detection method. There were 32,520,983 reports in VigiBase, of which 68,489 (0.21%) were for ILD. Signals were mainly detected for tumor necrosis factor-α inhibitors when the information component for ILD caused by biologic agents was calculated. Comorbidity analysis in patients who developed ILD and analysis of the time from the start of treatment with each drug to ILD onset showed differences for each biologic agent. ILD is a serious adverse effect of biologic agents, and there are several cases in which a causal relationship with ILD development cannot be ruled out. The occurrence of interstitial ILD should be noted when using biologics, particularly TNF-α inhibitors.