Top-ranking drugs out of 3312 drug-induced liver injury cases evaluated by the Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method

Introduction: A list presenting a valid ranking of drugs most commonly implicated is hardly to be found. Areas covered: Published cases of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) with verified causality using RUCAM (Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method) were used for a ranking of drugs most commonly implicated in causing DILI. Expert opinion: RUCAM-based DILI cases were retrieved from 15 reports published by six international databases of DILI registries and three large medical centers, which provided 3312 cases. Overall 48 drugs with the highest number of DILI cases were listed. Among the top 10 ranking drugs implicated in causing DILI were, in decreasing order: amoxicillin-clavulanate, flucloxacilllin, atorvastatin, disulfiram, diclofenac, simvastatin, carbamazepine, ibuprofen, erythromycin, and anabolic steroids as bodybuilding agents. For these 10 drugs, respective DILI case numbers were highest for Amoxicillin-clavulanate (n=333) and lowest for anabolic steroids (n=26). The author classifies the databases of national DILI registries and large medical centers as best sources of drugs implicated in DILI. Presently discouraged is the use of the LiverTox website because many cases were derived from published cases of poor quality and could previously not be classified as DILI, calling for the inclusion of DILI cases with established causality by the updated RUCAM.