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Commonly prescribed drugs may have ocular side effects

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PORTLAND, Ore. — Patients on common osteoporosis and cancer drugs may inadvertently experience serious ocular side effects, according to researchers here with Oregon Health & Science University’s Casey Eye Institute.

Patients prescribed pamidronate disodium may develop uveitis, nonspecific conjunctivitis, episcleritis or scleritis, wrote Frederick Fraunfelder, MD, in the March 20 issue of New England Journal of Medicine. Because of the known ocular side effects of that bisphosphonate and by studying other members of that drug class, Dr. Fraunfelder determined the entire drug class can cause serious ocular side effects.

“A finding of particular importance to clinicians is that no case of unilateral or bilateral scleritis that developed in persons receiving bisphosphonates resolved, regardless of therapy, until the bisphosphonate was discontinued,” he wrote.