Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Georgia: Avandia Study

Good find by Pharmalot:

A new study that compares Aandia with Actos found an increased risk of various cardiovascular problems with Avandia, but the studay that hasn’t raised as many concerns.

The authors looked at records of 227,571 Medicare patients with an average age of 74.4 years who were followed for up to three years after starting either of the two pills. What was found? Avandia increased the risk of stroke by 27 percent; heart failure by 25 percent; death by 13 percent; acute myocardial infarction or death by 11 percent; AMI, stroke, or death by 14 percent and AMI, stroke, heart failure or death by 17 percent.

The drug's maker has said about the study:   “it is unclear whether this study has been peer reviewed, and until then, it would be premature to comment. However, it is important to note that there are inherent limitations with retrospective observational studies…Randomized clinical trials remain the gold standard…Results from six randomized clinical trials…show that Avandia does not increase the overall risk of heart attack, stroke or death."

Source here