Bladder Cancer Risks WithActos May Be Found In Other Diabetes Drugs

A class action actos lawsuit has been filed against Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly on behalf of all users of the diabetes drug Actos, seeking financial compensation and medical monitoring as a result of the drug makers’ failure to adequately warn about the risk of bladder cancer from Actos. But Actos is not the only drug to contain its active chemical, pioglitazone. Avandia and Actos are members of a drug family called the thiazolidinediones, abbreviated TZDs. This is a relatively new class of oral anti-diabetic drugs which was developed during the 1990s. These drugs began their careers showing great promise in the treatment of insulin resistance, and hopes were raised by preliminary research that they might be able to rescue failing beta cells.Unfortunately, over time all three were found to cause life-threatening actos side effects, the risk of which was far greater than the benefit these drugs provided. 

The potential risk of actos bladder cancer problems is now being reviewed by health regulators in the United States and other countries throughout the world.
Like other, safer, oral diabetes drugs, the manufacturers' own prescribing information makes it clear that these drugs produce only a modest change in blood sugar and insulin levels, though possibly a bit more than Metformin.Studies funded by Takeda, the manufacturer of Actos, suggest that Actos may improve endothelial dysfunction--a factor in the development of vascular complications--and that it might decrease the kind of inflammation associated with coronary artery disease and improve high blood pressure.New research suggests that users of Actos may face an increased risk of bladder cancer. 

Actos is the best-selling type II diabetes drug in the world, but over the summer, growing concerns about its possible link to bladder cancer reached a crescendo. On June 15, 2011, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued a safety communication stating that use of Actos for more than one year may be associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer. That same month, sales of the drug were suspended in France and Germany after a separate study commissioned by French regulators demonstrated an increased risk of bladder cancer associated with Actos in people who took it the longest and at the highest cumulative dose.