Safety analysis of acyclovir use in neonates based on the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System

Longbing He, Bo Wang, Yang Wang, Youshuai Chen · 2026

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Description

He and colleagues mined the Food and Drug Administration's adverse event database for safety signals of acyclovir, in a 2026 analysis. Acyclovir is the first-line drug for herpes simplex infection in newborns. Safety evidence in babies under one month old is thin despite wide use at high doses. The team screened reports from 2004 through late 2024 with acyclovir as the suspect.

He found 130 neonatal reports covering 409 adverse events and applied four statistical signal methods at once, keeping only signals positive on all four. Four organ groups stood out: skin and tissue under it, general and injection-site problems, liver and bile disorders, and kidney and urinary disorders. The strongest signals involved tissue death or swelling at the infusion site and skin peeling or death. Three reported events, including Kawasaki disease and gut inflammation, do not appear in product labeling, which the authors say warrants confirmation and monitoring.

Catalog record

CREATORLongbing He, Bo Wang, Yang Wang, Youshuai Chen
YEAR2026
COLLECTIONPAPERS
FORMATTXT
FILE SIZE28 KB
LICENSEhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
RIGHTSCC BY
SOURCEEurope PMC

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13529189

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