Diabetes Drug May Raise Risk of Bladder Cancer

In a British study of 115,727 patients with type 2 diabetes who became new users of oral hypoglycemic agents from 1988 through 2009, 470 incident cases of bladder cancer developed over 4.6 years of follow-up, according to an online report in the British Medical Journal.

Subjects who had ever used pioglitazone had an 83% increased risk of bladder cancer compared with nonusers, but the absolute risk remains low. The increased risk corresponds to 74 cases per 100,000 person-years compared with 73 cases per 100,000 person-years in the general U.K. population aged 65 years and older.

However, the risk rose to 88 cases per 100,000 person-years for patients who had taken pioglitazone for two years or more and 137 cases per 100,000 person-years for patients who had taken 28,000 mg or more.

From the July 01, 2012 Issue of Renal and Urology News