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The results of new research have been released which show that there is no increased risk of heart attacks in patients taking the anti-HIV drug abacavir.
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), reviewed data from more than 14,600 patients in 54 clinical studies, and found that there was no increased risk of myocardial infarction associated with abacavir.
The review followed an earlier analysis by the Data Collection on Adverse events of Anti-HIV Drugs (D:A:D) cohort, which found a potential link between highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens containing abacavir, and an increased risk of heart attack.
The review pooled data from 9,639 subjects on abacavir-containing HAART, and 5,044 subjects on non-abacavir HAART. Overall, fewer than 30 heart attacks had been reported across the abacavir and non-abacavir groups, and no increased risk of heart attack associated with abacavir was observed.
“GSK took the responsibility to examine the existing body of clinical data available to us as soon as we learned the results of the D:A:D cohort,” said John Pottage, vice president of global clinical development at GSK. “The D:A:D findings were certainly unexpected and are inconsistent with what we have seen with our own data. GSK believes at this time that the D:A:D data are inconclusive.”
Copyright PA Business 2008
