Quinidine side effects: what 143 FDA adverse event reports show
Drug class
Not stated in label
Label matched
Quinidine Sulfate Tablet (Quinidine Sulfate)
Who reports
143 reports · 78% serious · 11 with death outcome · 52% female
Used for
Conversion of Atrial Fibrillation/Flutter In patients with symptomatic atrial fibrillation/flutter whose symptoms are not adequately controlled by measures that reduce the rate of ventricular response, quinidine sulfate is indicated as a means of restoring normal sinus rhythm.
What it is
DESCRIPTION Quinidine is an antimalarial schizonticide and an antiarrhythmic agent with class 1A activity; it is the d-isomer of quinine, and its molecular weight is 324.43. Quinidine sulfate .
Boxed warning
None in the current label
Causality screen of the 6 strongest signals
What the badges mean
- Labeled adverse reaction The exact term appears in the label's warnings or adverse-reactions sections: a known, expected effect. The FAERS signal confirms the label rather than discovering anything.
- Labeled (related wording) The label describes this effect under different wording (e.g. 'neutropenia' for 'neutrophil count decreased'). Treated as known.
- Likely indication confounding The term appears in the label's indications: reports probably describe the disease being treated (or its progression), not a drug effect. Classic confounding by indication.
- Not in label — unassessed Not found in the label text, not an artifact pattern. This is a genuine candidate for a formal causality assessment (Bradford Hill / WHO-UMC); it has NOT had one here.
Strongest disproportionality signals
Flagged terms (PRR ≥ 2, χ² ≥ 4, n ≥ 10), ranked by PRR; infinite PRRs (no comparator reports) excluded. The EBGM column is a second, shrinkage-based estimate (MGPS) with its 5th percentile EB05 and the BCPNN IC025; a pair flagged by PRR alone is marked PRR-only and should be read as fragile. The strata column recomputes the PRR on serious reports only and flags pairs whose reports are unusually skewed by sex or come mostly from consumers rather than clinicians. 0 further terms are in the interactive explorer. Reaction links open the term's cross-drug page.
| Reaction | Reports | PRR 95% CI · ROR · χ²/p | EBGM EB05 · IC025 | Label screen | Serious-only & strata | Trial cross-check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photosensitivity reaction (sun sensitivity) | 12 | 107.0 62.2–183.9ROR 116.7 · χ² 1,156 / p 9e-254 | 91.8 EB05 55.9 · IC025 +3.4 3/3 methods agree | Labeled (related wording) related wording | serious PRR 124.5 | no trial data cached |
| Peritonitis | 13 | 92.1 54.8–154.7ROR 101.2 · χ² 1,082 / p 1e-237 | 81.4 EB05 50.6 · IC025 +3.5 3/3 methods agree | Not in label — unassessed | serious PRR 67.8 | no trial data cached |
| Intervertebral disc protrusion | 13 | 87.0 51.8–146.1ROR 95.6 · χ² 1,021 / p 2e-224 | 77.4 EB05 48.2 · IC025 +3.4 3/3 methods agree | Not in label — unassessed | serious PRR 74.7 | no trial data cached |
| Frequent bowel movements | 12 | 65.4 38.1–112.5ROR 71.3 · χ² 699 / p 3e-154 | 59.5 EB05 36.3 · IC025 +3.2 3/3 methods agree | Likely indication confounding shares a disease stem with the indications wording | serious PRR 74.2 | no trial data cached |
| Systemic lupus erythematosus | 13 | 53.9 32.1–90.5ROR 59.2 · χ² 624 / p 5e-138 | 50.2 EB05 31.2 · IC025 +3.2 3/3 methods agree | Labeled adverse reaction exact term | serious PRR 40.6 | no trial data cached |
| Colitis ulcerative | 13 | 42.8 25.5–71.8ROR 46.9 · χ² 490 / p 7e-109 | 40.4 EB05 25.1 · IC025 +3.1 3/3 methods agree | Not in label — unassessed | serious PRR 33.8 | no trial data cached |
Trial evidence (ClinicalTrials.gov)
Most frequently reported reactions
By raw co-report count, regardless of disproportionality. Common terms here are often the illness itself or generic outcomes.
| Reaction | Reports | PRR 95% CI · ROR · χ²/p | EBGM EB05 · IC025 | Label screen | Serious-only & strata | Trial cross-check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colitis ulcerative | 13 | 42.8 25.5–71.8ROR 46.9 · χ² 490 / p 7e-109 | 40.4 EB05 25.1 · IC025 +3.1 3/3 methods agree | Not in label — unassessed | serious PRR 33.8 | no trial data cached |
| Systemic lupus erythematosus | 13 | 53.9 32.1–90.5ROR 59.2 · χ² 624 / p 5e-138 | 50.2 EB05 31.2 · IC025 +3.2 3/3 methods agree | Labeled adverse reaction exact term | serious PRR 40.6 | no trial data cached |
| Intervertebral disc protrusion | 13 | 87.0 51.8–146.1ROR 95.6 · χ² 1,021 / p 2e-224 | 77.4 EB05 48.2 · IC025 +3.4 3/3 methods agree | Not in label — unassessed | serious PRR 74.7 | no trial data cached |
| Peritonitis | 13 | 92.1 54.8–154.7ROR 101.2 · χ² 1,082 / p 1e-237 | 81.4 EB05 50.6 · IC025 +3.5 3/3 methods agree | Not in label — unassessed | serious PRR 67.8 | no trial data cached |
| Frequent bowel movements | 12 | 65.4 38.1–112.5ROR 71.3 · χ² 699 / p 3e-154 | 59.5 EB05 36.3 · IC025 +3.2 3/3 methods agree | Likely indication confounding shares a disease stem with the indications wording | serious PRR 74.2 | no trial data cached |
| Photosensitivity reaction (sun sensitivity) | 12 | 107.0 62.2–183.9ROR 116.7 · χ² 1,156 / p 9e-254 | 91.8 EB05 55.9 · IC025 +3.4 3/3 methods agree | Labeled (related wording) related wording | serious PRR 124.5 | no trial data cached |
Unlabeled candidate signals
Every screened signal with n ≥ 20 was either labeled, an indication term, or an artifact pattern — no unlabeled candidate stood out in the top signals.
Want to assess one of these properly? The runbook describes the Bradford Hill / trial-evidence workflow used on the assessment page, and handoff_top1000_signals.csv lists the strongest unassessed pairs across all drugs.
Common questions
What are the most reported side effects of Quinidine?
In FDA FAERS, the most frequently co-reported reaction terms for Quinidine are colitis ulcerative, systemic lupus erythematosus, intervertebral disc protrusion, peritonitis, frequent bowel movements, photosensitivity reaction. These are report counts, not rates: FAERS has no denominator, reporting is voluntary and uneven, and a term can be reported because of the illness being treated rather than the drug.
Does Quinidine have an FDA boxed warning?
No. The FDA label retrieved for Quinidine has no boxed warning; see the label's Warnings and Precautions for the recognised risks.
Do FAERS signals prove that Quinidine causes these side effects?
No. A disproportionality signal (PRR, ROR) means a reaction is reported more often with this drug than with others in the database. That can reflect a real effect, but also the disease being treated, stimulated reporting after news or litigation, co-medications, or how reports are coded. Causality needs temporality, dose-response, biological plausibility, consistency across data sources and, ideally, trial or cohort evidence. This page screens each term against the FDA label and ClinicalTrials.gov results; it does not establish causation.
Sources & methods
- FDA label via openFDA (set ID b0d6341b-d880-4f0b-8844-bc788c03004a, effective 20231108; matched on
openfda.generic_name.exact:"QUINIDINE SULFATE TABLET") - Bayesian shrinkage measures computed offline over all 1,317,300 cached pairs: BCPNN information component (IC, with Norén closed-form IC025) and MGPS empirical-Bayes geometric mean (EBGM, EB05) with a two-component gamma prior fitted by maximum marginal likelihood (α₁=0.57, β₁=0.02, α₂=1.42, β₂=0.70, w=0.17); unstratified
- FAERS pair statistics from the OpenPV build of 2026-09-14 (openFDA
count=aggregation, fieldpatient.drug.openfda.generic_name.exact, 6 reaction terms, min 3 co-reports); PRR/ROR with 95% CI, chi-square with Yates correction - Serious-only and stratified counts (serious:1, patient.patientsex, primarysource.qualification) from openFDA count queries; serious-only PRR uses the drug serious report total and the term global serious total (N_serious=11,882,979); strata shown only when n ≥ 20
- Seriousness and sex counts from openFDA
count=serious,patient.patientsex,seriousnessdeath
Page generated 2026-10-08. Label and PubChem text are retrieved automatically and may lag the current label; always check the current prescribing information. OpenPV is a beta research tool of the Open Source Medicine Foundation.