Paris (dpa) - French health authorities on Thursday suspended the
use of a popular diabetes drug after pioglitazone was found to
increase the risk of bladder cancer in patients. Pioglitazone, a
Type 2 diabetes drug, is produced by Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical
Company Limited. In most countries, including France, it is sold
under the brand name Actos, but in some countries it is marketed as
Glustin.
The French drug safety authority Afssaps said it had decided to
suspend the use of Actos and Competact, another Takeda anti-diabetes
product that contains pioglitazone, after a study carried out by the
French health insurance fund (CNAM) confirmed "a small increase in
the risk of bladder cancer in patients treated using pioglitazone."
In France, around 230,000 patients use pioglitazone.
Actos was licensed for sale in Europe in 2000. Competact was
licensed in 2006.
The CNAM study, which was carried out between 2006 and 2009,
compared 155,535 patients being treated with pioglitazone with
1,335,525 patients not receiving the drug.
Male pioglitazone users were 20 per cent more likely to contract
bladder cancer, which mainly affects men.
The study found that the risk increased the longer the patient was
on the drug and the greater the dosage.
Afssaps recommended that patients currently on Actos or Competact
remain on the drug until their doctors had prescribed an alternative
treatment.
French doctors are henceforth barred from prescribing either drug.
The European Medicines Agency has yet to issue any warning about
pioglitazone.
The warning about Actos comes nine months after another diabetes
drug Avandia, also known as rosiglitazone, was suspended in Europe on
the recommendation of the EMA after it was found to increase the risk
of heart disease.
Copyright 2011 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH