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Study: diabetes drug lowers amputation risk
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 22 - 05 - 2009

Doctors who gave diabetics a drug originally intended to lower patients' cholesterol found it reduced
their risk of so-called minor amputation by 36 percent, a
new analysis of research says, according to AP.
Researchers in Australia, Finland and New Zealand studied
almost 10,000 patients aged 50 to 75 with type 2 diabetes,
the kind linked to obesity. About half of the patients were
given fenofibrate, a drug available generically and sold as
Antara, Fenoglide, Lipofen and others. The other half got
fake pills. After five years, 115 patients had at least one
lower limb amputation because of diabetes.
Diabetes can damage nerves and blood vessels. In severe
cases, this leads to amputation. About one diabetes patient
in 10 loses part of a leg.
The study, first published in 2005, aimed to see if
fenofibrate prevented heart disease. It didn't.
But in this new analysis, experts found patients on
fenofibrate had a 36 percent lower risk of a first
amputation than those on placebo.
Patients who lost part of their legs were more likely to
have heart disease, smoking, skin ulcers or previous
amputations. Amputations were labeled minor if they were
below the ankle and major if they were above the ankle.
The risk of minor amputations in patients without large
vessel disease, the narrowing of blood vessels, was nearly
50 percent lower in the group taking fenofibrates. The risk
of a major amputation was not substantially different
between the two groups. Taller people were also more likely
to suffer amputations.
The results were published Friday in the medical journal
Lancet. The study was paid for by Laboratoires Fournier SA,
now part of Solvay Pharmaceuticals, which makes
fenofibrates, and the National Health and Medical Research
Council of Australia.
After the study's first results, many doctors switched to
statins to cut their patients' heart disease risks and
dropped fenofibrates.
«Fenofibrates may be re-entering the game,» said Sergio
Fazio of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who
co-authored an accompanying commentary in the Lancet.
«Fenofibrates cannot possibly take the place of statins,
but they may earn a place next to them in diabetes
treatment.»
The study's authors said their findings could change the
standard treatment for avoiding amputations.
«(Fenofibrates) is the first therapy that has been shown
to reduce these amputations,» said Anthony Keech of the
Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia and one of the
paper's authors.
Victoria King of the charity Diabetes UK said the study
could help doctors find more ways of reducing
diabetes-related amputations.
Fenofibrates can cause side effects including abdominal
pain, nausea, pancreas and lung problems.


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