Researchers Find There Is No Such Risk, However, For Men Using This Atrial Fibrillation Heart Drug

(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)

An August 14, 2007 article published by Reuters, "Heart drug may lead to pacemaker use in women", reports a rather peculiar finding concerning the Wyeth (WYE) heart drug Cordarone (amiodarone), used to treat atrial fibrillation, insofar that a serious side effect of this drug appears to affect only women and not men.

From the August 14 Reuters article:

Dr. Peter Zimetbaum and associates note in the Archives of Internal Medicine [August 13/27, 2007] that amiodarone is more effective than other drugs for maintaining a normal heartbeat in patients with atrial fibrillation, but this comes at the cost of more side effects….

Amiodarone use was identified as a risk factor for requiring a pacemaker. However, further analysis showed that this only applied to women not to men. Women who used amiodarone were nearly five times more likely to require a pacemaker than those who did not.

Given their findings, the authors of this August 2007 Archives of Internal Medicine article make these two points to doctors who prescribe Cordarone for atrial fibrillation:

• They warn that "additional caution should be taken when [Cordarone] is being prescribed to women."; and,
• They advise prescribing lower doses of Cordarone in women, "particularly elderly women, because age is also associated with an increased need for pacemaker insertion."

Atrial fibrillation is a relatively common heartbeat abnormality in which the walls of the  upper chambers of the heart vibrate rapidly. This type of heart beat disturbance is called an "arrhythmia".  Further, this cardiac condition raises the risk that blood clots may form in the heart, possibly travel to the brain, and cause one to suffer an ischemic stroke.