Pharmacological cousin of amiodarone is effective without toxic side
effects
Dronedarone, a drug related to amiodarone, could provide an effective
new treatment for arrhythmia, without amiodarone’s thyroid and
pulmonary side effects, the results of two multicentre studies suggest
(New England Journal of Medicine 2007;357:2007).
The double-blind, randomised trials involved 1,237 patients in total
and showed that, compared with placebo, dronedarone is effective at preventing
recurrence of arrhythmia. The median times to recurrence of arrhythmia
were 41 days and 59 days in the placebo groups and 96 and 158 days in
the dronedarone groups. Also, at the time of recurrence of arrhythmia,
the mean ventricular heart rates were 117.5 and 116.6 beats per minute
in the placebo groups and 102.3 and 104.6 beats per minute in the dronedarone
group.
Dronedarone is pharmacologically related to amiodarone but has some structural
differences. Researchers hoped these differences would eliminate the
potentially serious side effects of amiodarone on thyroid and pulmonary
function. The results of the two trials showed that rates of pulmonary
toxic effects and of thyroid dysfunction were not significantly increased
in the dronedarone group. However, the authors point out that they did
not compare dronedarone with amiodarone and so cannot be certain that
the efficacy of dronedarone is similar to that of amiodarone.
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader