Data from: Antiepileptic drug use and mortality among community-dwelling persons with Alzheimer’s disease

Sarycheva, Tatyana, University of Eastern Finland

Lavikainen, Piia, University of Eastern Finland

Taipale, Heidi, University of Eastern Finland

Tiihonen, Jari, Karolinska Institute

Tanskanen, Antti, Karolinska Institute

Hartikainen, Sirpa, University of Eastern Finland

Tolppanen, Anna-Maija, University of Eastern Finland

tatyana.sarycheva@uef.fi

Published Mar 18, 2021 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.q3b38p9

Cite this dataset

Sarycheva, Tatyana et al. (2021). Data from: Antiepileptic drug use and mortality among community-dwelling persons with Alzheimer’s disease [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.q3b38p9

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the risk of death in relation to incident antiepileptic drug use compared with non-use in people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) through the assessment in terms of duration of use, specific drugs and main causes of death. Methods: The MEDALZ cohort includes all Finnish persons who received a clinically verified AD diagnosis (N=70718) in 2005‒2011. Incident AED users were identified with 1-year washout period. For each incident AED user (n=5638) one non-user was matched according to sex, age and time since AD diagnosis. Analyses were conducted with Cox proportional hazards models and inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW). Results: Nearly 50% discontinued AEDs within six months. Compared with non-users, AED users had an increased relative risk of death (IPTW hazard ratio (HR): 1.23; 95% CI: 1.12‒1.36). This was mainly due to deaths from dementia (IPTW HR: 1.62, 95% CI: 1.42‒1.86). There was no difference in cardio- and cerebrovascular deaths (IPTW HR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.67‒1.44). The overall mortality was highest during the first 90 days of AED use (IPTW HR: 2.40, 95% CI: 1.91‒3.03). Among users of older AEDs relative risk of death was greater compared to users of newer AED use (IPTW HR: 1.79, 95% CI: 1.52‒2.16). Conclusions: In old vulnerable population with cognitive disorder, careful consideration of AED initiation and close adverse events monitoring are needed.

Usage notes

Contents of supplementary files: Figure 1(a-b) K-M curves for the whole and restricted to 3 years follow-up periods Figure 2 (a-h) K-M curves for drug-drug comparison for the whole sample with the follow-up restricted to 3 years Table 1 Definitions for exclusion criteria Table 2 Definitions and classifications of baseline covariates Table 3 Differences in baseline characteristics between AED users with and without matched non-users Table 4 Characteristics of the study sample of persons with Alzheimer’s disease according to the use of antiepileptic drugs Table 5 Characteristics of the antiepileptic drug users by type of antiepileptic drug Table 6 Causes of death Table 7 Association between type of antiepileptic drug and dementia deaths by type of AED (follow-up is restricted to 3 years) Table 8 Association between antiepileptic use and mortality overall and stratified by causes of death in persons without epilepsy (follow-up is restricted to 3 years) Figure 3 K-M curve for persons without epilepsy Table 9 Causes of death in persons without epilepsy (group of non-users is composed of different matching persons compared to the previous whole sample) Table 10 Association of antiepileptic use and all cause mortality stratified by follow-up time in persons without epilepsy (follow-up is restricted to 3 years) Table 11 Association between type of antiepileptic drug and all cause mortality by type of AED in persons without epilepsy (follow-up is restricted to 3 years) Figure 4 K-M curves for drug-drug comparison in persons without epilepsy with the follow-up restricted to 3 years.

Location

Finland