More bad news for Avandia & its link with cardiac events

"The diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline) has already been suspended in Europe and is available in the U.S. and Canada on a restricted basis. A new study supports such actions as it has found the drug to be associated with significantly higher odds of congestive heart failure, heart attack and death compared with pioglitazone (Actos, Takeda Pharmaceuticals). The meta-analysis, published March 17 in the British Medical Journal, analyzed the results of 16 studies involving 810,000 patients (429,000 on rosiglitazone and 381,000 on pioglitazone). Most patients were more than 60 years old. Yoon Kong Loke, MD, senior lecturer in clinical pharmacology at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and colleagues noted that both drugs, which help to control blood sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes, are known to increase the risk of heart failure. However, they said, "It is unclear whether there are clinically important differences in their cardiac safety. Compared with pioglitazone, rosiglitazone was associated with a modest but statistically significant increased risk of heart attack (16 percent), congestive heart failure (23 percent) and mortality (14 percent)