US FDA reviewing safety of commonly-used prostate cancer drugs, citing possible diabetes and cardiac risks
In the wake of approving the first prostate cancer vaccine - Dendreon's Provenge (sipuleucel-T) - last week (The Pharma Letter April 30), the US food and Drug Administration says that, according to a preliminary and ongoing analysis of several studies, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists, a class of drugs primarily used to treat men with prostate cancer, have been associated with a small increased risk for diabetes, heart attack, stroke and sudden death in men treated with one of these medications.
Drugs in the GnRH class are marketed under the brand names: Eligard (leuprolide) by Sanofi-Aventis; Lupron (leuprolide) by Abbott Laboratories; Synarel (nafarelin) by Pfizer; Trelstar (triptorelin pamoate) by Watson Pharmaceuticals; Vantas (histrelin) by Endo Pharmaceuticals; Viadur (leuprolide acetate implant) by Bayer Pharmaceuticals; and Zoladex (goserelin acetate) by AstraZeneca.
Based on its initial findings, the FDA advises:
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