May 23, 2007Doctors, patients ponder Avandia’s future
Many of the 18 million or so Americans who suffer from type 2 diabetes are unsure what will happen with Avandia, a drug to which they had become accustomed. Avandia, which sensitizes the body to insulin, is not without side effects. It can cause fluid retention and weight gain, so physicians use it cautiously in patients with heart failure because a weakened heart cannot easily pump much blood.There’s another, more pressing, issue. Avandia, which won approval from the Food and Drug Administration in 1999, reduces blood sugar by about 60% but no evidence has been found to prove that it actually prevents heart attacks and strokes. On the contrary, it has been linked with heightened cardiovascular problems.
Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic conducted a meta-analysis of data about Avandia and heart issues. It was published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. In an accompanying editorial, Drs. Bruce Psaty and Curt Furberg wrote that Avandia “represents a major failure of the drug-use and drug-approval processes in the United States.”
So far, at least, doctors are telling worried patients not to stop taking the drug on their own. If they were to abruptly quit the drug, a sudden increase in blood sugar could result. But the big question to be answered is whether Avandia will cease being used at all. Some of its critics are urging an Avandia recall—sooner rather than later.