Actos, Avandia heart failure risks confirmed: study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The diabetes drugs Actos and Avandia raise the risk of heart failure but do not increase the risk of heart-related death, U.S. researchers said on Thursday, confirming earlier findings.

The popular drugs for treating type 2 diabetes have been the subject of numerous analyses -- with more to come -- as doctors attempt to weigh their risks following the May report that Avandia increased the risk of death by 64 percent and the risk of heart attack by 43 percent.

Both Actos, made by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, and Avandia, made by GlaxoSmithKline, already carry U.S. Food and Drug Administration "black box" warnings that they may cause or worsen congestive heart failure, a chronic condition in which the heart fails to pump blood efficiently.

The latest study in the journal Lancet found heart failure risks are greatest for patients with a history of heart disease and heart failure, but less for those who had no heart problems. Overall the relative risk was 72 percent higher.

"The risk is across all types of patients but the risk ranges from very low to very high depending on the patient's cardiac history," Dr. Richard Nesto of the Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Actos, known generically as pioglitazone, and Avandia, or rosiglitazone help the body use insulin more effectively. They are among several classes of drugs that treat type-2 diabetes, which affects 194 million people worldwide.

KNOWN RISK

Spokeswomen for both Glaxo and Takeda noted the congestive heart failure risk is not new to the class of drugs called thiazolidinediones. And they said the study did not find an increased risk of death, as did May's New England Journal of Medicine analysis.