Does the diabetic drug Actos (pioglitazone) cause bladder cancer? US and Canadian health authorities think the risk is great enough to add warnings to their labelling, but studies continue to come out that conflict one another.
Researchers from McGill University hoped to clarify the Actos-bladder cancer association, and have published their work in the British Medical Journal.
What they found was pretty clear: patients with type 2 diabetes treated with Actos had an 83% higher risk for bladder cancer than those who had never used it.
The risk is drug-specific, since they also found that patients taking Avandia (rosiglitazone) did not have an elevated risk for bladder cancer.
They also determined that the longer a patient was on Actos, the greater the risk for bladder cancer, something also not seen in Avandia users.
Limitations of the study included restricting their study to prescriptions written in primary care and a dearth of information on whether the patient adhered to treatment or had other cancer risk factors, and the fact that taking Actos generally indicates a worse case of diabetes, putting the patient at greater risk for cancer.
They concluded that "Doctors, patients, and regulatory agencies should be aware of this association when assessing the overall risks and benefits of this therapy,"
Source: Medpage Today
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