Because clinical trials are conducted under widely varying conditions, adverse reaction rates observed in the clinical trials of a drug cannot be directly compared to rates in the clinical trials of another drug and may not reflect the rates observed in practice.
The CLINOLIPID trials had small sample sizes and patients had a variety of underlying medical conditions both between different trials and within the individual trials. Patients had gastrointestinal diseases/dysfunction or were recovering from gastrointestinal or other surgeries, trauma, burns, or were afflicted by other chronic illness.
Adult Trials
Commonly observed adverse reactions in 261 adult patients who received CLINOLIPID were nausea and vomiting, hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia, hypoproteinemia, and abnormal liver function tests and occurred in 2 to 10 % of patients.
The largest clinical trial in adult patients (Study 1) enrolled 48 subjects with different underlying diagnoses. Study 2 was a randomized, open label multicenter study that enrolled 22 subjects, aged 32-81 years, who required long-term parenteral nutrition.
The most common adverse reactions in Study 1 and Study 2 were infectious complications (urinary tract infection, septicemia, and fever of unknown origin), treatment emergent abnormalities on liver/gallbladder ultrasound and abnormalities of serum chemistries, principally, hepatic function tests.
Adverse reactions reported with other intravenous lipid emulsions include hyperlipidemia, hypercoagulability, thrombophlebitis, and thrombocytopenia.
Adverse reactions reported in long-term use with other intravenous lipid emulsions include hepatomegaly, jaundice due to central lobular cholestasis, splenomegaly, thrombocytopenia, leukopenia, abnormalities in liver function tests, brown pigmentation of the liver and overloading syndrome (focal seizures, fever, leukocytosis, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, and shock).
Pediatric Trials
The safety of CLINOLIPID in pediatric patients was evaluated in Studies 3, 4, 5, and 6 [see Clinical Studies (14.2)].
In Study 3, EFAD was defined by calculating the Holman index (the triene [Mead acid] to tetraene [arachidonic acid] ratio; T:T ratio > 0.4). Although no patient developed EFAD, one CLINOLIPID-treated patient who had a T:T ratio that increased from < 0.2 at baseline to > 0.2 at end of study treatment was considered at risk for EFAD. This patient’s arachidonic and linoleic acid levels remained within the normal range. No soybean oil lipid emulsion-treated patients had a T:T ratio ≥ 0.2.
In Studies 3, 4, 5, and 6, adverse reactions occurred at similar rates in subjects treated with CLINOLIPID and the 100% soybean oil comparator. Adverse reactions that occurred in ≥5% of patients included hyperbilirubinemia, patent ductus arteriosus, anemia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, bradycardia, feeding intolerance, neonatal intraventricular hemorrhage, increased alkaline phosphatase, atrial septal defect, hyponatremia, sepsis, and infantile apnea.