Safety profile of the use of iodopovidone for pleurodesis as treatment of malignant pleural effusion

BACKGROUND: Iodopovidone has been described as a sclerosing agent easily obtained, inexpensive and with good results. Despite this, its safety has not been systematically evaluated and some authors have restrictions to its use because of reports of some adverse events related. OBJECTIVE: To describe the occurrence of common and serious adverse events after iodopovidone pleurodesis. Second endpoints were to describe dose-dependent relation to adverse events, procedure efficacy and patient's quality of life. METHODS: clinical trial including patients with recurrent malignant pleural effusion, undergone to pleurodesis, randomized into two groups: group 1 received 1% iodopovidone and group 2 received 2% Iodopovidone. We sought adverse events systematically with clinical and complementary evaluations since before pleurodesis and on several times postoperative. Clinical evaluation involved pain analog scale, dyspnea scale, oxygen saturation, heart frequency, arterial blood pressure, body temperature and visual acuity. Complementary evaluation was done by electrocardiogram, chest x-ray and laboratory tests (hemogram, renal function, liver function and thyroid function). All adverse events were graduated according to the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAEV). Efficacy was considered when the patients did not need further pleural procedure after pleurodesis and quality of life analysis was determined by questionnaire. RESULTS: Sixty patients were enrolled, thirty in each group, 55 females and 5 males. Mean age was 55,9 ± 11,7. The mainly etiology of malignant pleural effusion was breast cancer, in 43 patients, followed by lung cancer and ovarian tumor. We found 47 serious adverse events, possibly related to iodopovidone pleurodesis that occurred in 34 patients on 30 days follow-up. Most frequent clinical adverse events of these were pain, eleven patients, hypertension, ten and empyema in one patients. Serious metabolic events founded were hyponatremia in eight patients, alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase increased in ten, three and one patients respectively and hypokalemia in one patient. Success rate occurred in 96%. We didn't find change on quality of life after pleurodesis. We found no difference in patient's demographical data, occurrence of adverse events, efficacy and quality of life between groups. CONCLUSIONS: Observed common and serious adverse events related to iodopovidone pleurodesis were pain, hypertension, and some metabolic alterations. We found good efficacy for iodopovidone pleurodesis, but no significant change in patient's quality of life after procedure. This report does not suggest dose-dependent relation for the occurrence of adverse events