Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency Reports Findings in Antihyperuricemic Agents (Cardiovascular risk of urate-lowering drugs: A study using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan): Drugs and Therapies – Antihyperuricemic Agents

Insurance Daily News

2022 NOV 14 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Drugs and Therapies - Antihyperuricemic Agents is the subject of a report. According to news reporting out of Tokyo, Japan, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “In the present study, we aimed to investigate the association between urate-lowering drugs and cardiovascular events, primarily focusing on the risk of febuxostat and topiroxostat when compared with allopurinol in Japan. We conducted an observational study with a cohort design using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan, including new urate-lowering drugs users between August 1, 2010, and March 31, 2018.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, “Exposure and control groups were defined based on the first prescription of urate-lowering drugs as follows: febuxostat or topiroxostat for exposure groups, allopurinol for the control group, and benzbromarone for the secondary control group. The primary outcome was cardiovascular events, defined as a composite of acute coronary syndrome, cerebral infarction, and cerebral hemorrhage. Hazard ratios were estimated using a Cox proportional hazards model. The number of patients in each exposure and control group was 1,357,671 in the febuxostat group, 83,683 in the topiroxostat group, 1,273,211 in the allopurinol group, and 258,786 in the benzbromarone group. The adjusted hazard ratios for the cardiovascular risk were 0.97 (95% confidence interval [CI]:0.95-0.98) for febuxostat and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.78-0.90) for topiroxostat groups. The benzbromarone group exhibited similar results. No increased cardiovascular risk was observed with febuxostat or topiroxostat when compared with allopurinol in hyperuricemia patients in Japan.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “These results provide real-world evidence regarding the cardiovascular risk associated with urate-lowering drugs, indicating that no additional safety-related regulatory actions are warranted in Japan.”

For more information on this research see: Cardiovascular risk of urate-lowering drugs: A study using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan. Clinical and Translational Science, 2022. Clinical and Translational Science can be contacted at: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - http://www.wiley.com/; Clinical and Translational Science - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1752-8062)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Kazuhiro Kajiyama, Office of Medical Informatics and Epidemiology, Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, Tokyo, Japan. Additional authors for this research include Sono Sawada, Haruka Shida, Ryota Kimura, Yuki Nakazato, Toyotaka Iguchi, Yukio Oniyama, Chieko Ishiguro and Yoshiaki Uyama.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1111/cts.13439. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.