No Cancer Risk With Angiotensin Receptor Blockers

Editor's Choice
Main Category: Hypertension
Also Included In: Cardiovascular / Cardiology;  Heart Disease;  Diabetes
Article Date: 03 Jun 2011 - 0:00 PDT


Angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) do not increase cancer risk, the FDA reported, after investigating the blood pressure medications following a study last year suggesting there might be a small risk. The FDA's (Food and Drug Administration's) one-year safety review reported that it found no evidence of an increased risk of cancer in over 155,000 patients in 31 randomized clinical trials.

Examples of ARBs include:

• Diovan (valsartan), Novartis
• Cozaar (losartan), Merck & Co
• Avapro (irbesartan), Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi
• Atacand (candesartan), Astra Zeneca and Takeda
• Benicar (olmesartan), Daiichi Sankyo
• Cozaar (losartan), Merck Co.
• Micardis (telmisartan), Boehringer Ingelheim
• Teveten (eprosartan), Abbott Laboratories

Mary Ross Southworth, deputy director for safety, Division of Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs, FDA, said:

"The FDA has completed its review of controlled trial data on more than 155,000 patients randomized to ARBs or other treatments - the largest evaluation of such data to date - and finds no evidence of an increased risk of cancer in patients who take an ARB."

ARBs are taken by millions of patients for hypertension (high blood pressure), heart failure, cardiovascular risk reduction, and diabetic kidney disease.

In June last year, a Lancet Oncology article reported on a meta-analysis of over 60,000 patients randomly selected to take either an ARB or a control medication. Co-author, Dr. Ilke Sipahi, associate director of heart failure and transplantation and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, wrote ""We have found the risk of new cancers was increased with these medications by 8-11 percent. Most importantly, risk of lung cancer was increased by 25 percent."

The FDA today announced that it has determined that any concern regarding a link between ARB use and cancer risk has been resolved by this analysis. If you are taking any type of antihypertensive drug, do not stop taking it without checking with your doctor first.

Source: FDA

Written by Christian Nordqivst
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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