Is cancer risk worth the benefit of angiotensin receptor blockers?

Angiotensin receptor blockers are a type of drug used to treat high blood pressure and diabetic nephropathy. Angiotensin receptor blockers, though, may increase the risk of cancer in patients taking drugs such as Cozaar, Telmisartan, Lisinopril, Hyzaar, and Diovan. The angiotensin receptor blockers have been shown to increase the risk of cancer by one percent – though the rate of death from those cancers isn't increased. Put very simply, if you take angiotensin receptor blockers, you are one percent more likely to get cancer, but you aren’t more likely to die from it.

Article Source: Angiotensin receptor blockers – Cancer risk worth the benefit

The angiotensin receptor blockers study

The data from over 60,000 patients taking angiotensin receptor blockers was re-reviewed by the researchers. The researchers used eight "seed" studies with seven different drugs to analyze for their research. November 2009 was the cutoff date for the studies used in this meta analysis. This analysis study found that anybody taking angiotensin receptor blockers had about one percent higher chance of getting cancer. In the context of this study, “significant” means statistically significant – only about one percent. Even though the patients taking angiotensin receptor blockers were one percent a lot more likely to get a new cancer, they are not any a lot more likely to die from those cancers.

The uses of angiotensin receptor blockers

Heart disease is treated with ARB drugs. The angiotensin receptor blocker drug helps relax the muscles around blood vessels, keeping them from contracting. Increasingly, angiotensin receptor blockers are getting used in a preventative fashion to help prevent kidney failure and heart attacks. In 2009, the sales of these angiotensin receptor blockers were over $ 15 billion. Within the commentary within the Lancet journal, Dr. Steven Nissen wrote:

“These drugs are often overprescribed, as a result of aggressive marketing and in theabsence of evidence that they are better than angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors,” another class of drugs.

Take angiotensin receptor blockers?

If you do take angiotensin receptor blockers, you should talk with your doctor about it. The increase in cancer risk from angiotensin receptor blockers does exist. At the exact same time, stopping the drug could put you at a much higher than one percent risk from the conditions it treats.

Citations

CBSNews.com

TheLancet.com