Evidence mapPaperPMID 41282415Full record

ArticleFrontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland)2025

Drug-induced headache reports: a comprehensive disproportionality and time-to-onset pharmacovigilance study using the FAERS database (2018-2024).

Abdulaziz Ibrahim Alzarea, Azfar Athar Ishaqui, Muhammad Bilal Maqsood, Abdullah Salah Alanazi, Aseel Awad Alsaidan, Tauqeer Hussain Mallhi, Narendar Kumar, Khalid M Orayj, Sultan M Alshahrani, Hassan H Alhassan and 2 more

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Article in Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

12 authors.

Abdulaziz Ibrahim Alzarea *Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Jouf University, Sakaka, Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia.
Azfar Athar Ishaqui *Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
Muhammad Bilal MaqsoodEastern Health Cluster, Ministry of Health, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
Abdullah Salah AlanaziDepartment of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Jouf University, Sakaka, Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia.
Aseel Awad AlsaidanDepartment of Family and Community Medicine, College of Medicine, Jouf University, Sakaka, Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia.
Tauqeer Hussain MallhiMedicines R Us Chemist, Gregory Hills, NSW, Australia.
Narendar KumarDepartment of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, Sindh University, Jamshoro, Pakistan.
Khalid M OrayjDepartment of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
Sultan M AlshahraniDepartment of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
Hassan H AlhassanDepartment of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Jouf University, Sakaka, Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia.
Sami I AlzareaDepartment of Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, Jouf University, Sakaka, Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia.
Omar Awad AlsaidanDepartment of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, Jouf University, Sakaka, Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Background: Headache is a common adverse drug reaction (ADR) across diverse therapeutic classes, yet systematic evaluations of drug-associated headaches in real-world settings are limited. This study aimed to explore the association between various medications and the reporting of headache as an ADR using the FDA-Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). Methods: We conducted a retrospective disproportionality analysis using FAERS data from Q1-2018 to Q4-2024. Duplicate reports were removed per FDA guidelines. Reports with headache as an adverse event and drugs classified as Primary Suspect were included. Disproportionality metrics - Reporting Odds Ratio (ROR) and Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR)-were calculated to identify signals. Drugs were classified according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical(ATC) classification system, and time-to-onset analyses were performed. Results: A total of 313,166 headache-associated cases were identified. Females (66.66%) and patients aged 51-65 years (21.35%) were most commonly affected. The drugs with the highest headache risk based on ROR included glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (ROR = 10.445), sofosbuvir/velpatasvir (ROR = 9.729), and eptinezumab-jjmr (ROR = 6.775). Top frequently reported drugs were apremilast, treprostinil, and adalimumab. Calcium homeostasis agents (ROR = 6.268) and systemic antivirals (ROR = 4.259) emerged as the ATC classes with the highest headache signal strength. Early-onset headaches (≤7days) were particularly associated with ofatumumab and fingolimod. Late-onset headaches (>90days) were linked to treprostinil and infliximab-dyyb. Conclusion: This large-scale pharmacovigilance study identifies multiple drugs and therapeutic classes with significant associations to headache as an ADR. These findings highlight the need for proactive headache monitoring, particularly during early treatment phases, and warrant further prospective investigations to understand mechanisms and preventive strategies.

Indexed as

adverse drug reactionsdisproportionality analysisdrug safetyheadachepharmacovigilance

Identifiers

PMID41282415
PMCPMC12634607

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.