Pioglitazone, a glycemic control drug for people with Type 2 Diabetes, appreciably lowers the risk of stroke, heart attack and death, but raises serious heart failure risk, says a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), September 12 issue.
A. Michael Lincoff, M.D., The Cleveland Clinic, and team carried out a meta-analysis of research to find out what the effect of pioglitazone might be on the incidence of ischemic cardiovascular complications for Type 2 Diabetes patients. The authors explained that evidence so far had not been enough to assess this effect. They analyzed 19 randomized trials involving 16,390 patients. The patients were on pioglitazone from 4 months to 3.5 years.
Of 8,554 patients receiving pioglitazone, 4.4% (375) of them suffered a heart attack, stroke or death, compared to 5.7% (450) of 7,836 patients who were treated with control therapy – i.e. a reduction of 18%. However, 2.3% (200) of the patients receiving pioglitazone had serious heart failure, compared to 1.8% (139) in the control group.
The authors explain “These findings suggest that the net clinical cardiovascular benefit with pioglitazone therapy is favorable, with an important reduction in irreversible ischemic events that is not attenuated by the risk of more frequent heart failure complications.”
“Pioglitazone and Risk of Cardiovascular Events in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus – A Meta-analysis of Randomized Trials”
A. Michael Lincoff, MD; Kathy Wolski, MPH; Stephen J. Nicholls, MBBS, PhD; Steven E. Nissen, MD
JAMA. 2007;298:1180-1188.
Written by: Christian Nordqvist