AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Gout, Heart Disease, Rheumatology / 18.06.2018
Cardiovascular Risk and Gout Treatment: Febuxostat v. Allopurinol
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Seoyoung C. Kim, MD, ScD, MSCE
Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Pharmacoepidemiology & Pharmacoeconomics
Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Since patients with gout are at an increased risk of cardiovascular events, we wanted to examine comparative cardiovascular safety of the two most commonly used urate-lowering drugs – febuxostat and allopurinol.
Using claims data from US Medicare, we conducted a cohort study of 24,936 febuxostat initiators PS-matched to 74,808 allopurinol initiators.
We found the risk of the primary cardiovascular endpoint (MI or stroke) was similar between the two groups. Analyses on secondary endpoints as well as all-cause mortality showed similar findings except that febuxostat was associated with a modestly reduced risk of heart failure exacerbation among patients with preexisting heart failure. In our sensitivity analysis, the risk of all-cause mortality associated with long-term use of febuxostat v. allopurinol appears to be increased but statistically not significant.
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