Arrhythmia drug amiodarone "may increase cancer risk"

One of the most widely used drugs to treat arrhythmias, amiodarone, may increase the risk of developing cancer, especially in men and people exposed to high amounts of the drug. That is the conclusion of a new retrospective study published early on-line in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, released by Wiley Science today. The study’s results indicate that a potential link between amiodarone and cancer warrants further investigation.

Amiodarone, Sanofi and Wyeth’s now off patent Cordarone, was approved in 1985 for the treatment of arrhythmias, or irregular heartbeats. Because the drug is fat-soluble and degrades very slowly, large amounts can accumulate in soft tissues after a long-term prescription. Previous studies have shown that amiodarone might increase the risk of certain cancers, but no large-scale study has looked at the issue.

To investigate, Vincent Yi-Fong Su, of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, and his colleagues studied 6,418 individuals taking the drug, following them for an average of 2.57 years. A total of 280 participants developed cancer.