Common Antibiotic Linked to Cardiac Events

New research has highlighted a link between the use of fluoroquinolones (FQs) and the risk of aortic and mitral regurgitation.

Previous research has suggested that FQ use is associated with adverse cardiac events, including aortic dissection and aneurysm.

The researchers conducted a disproportionality analysis and case-control study involving data from 12,505 cases of valvular regurgitation the US Food and Drug Administration’s adverse reporting system database with 125,020 patients randomly selected from the US PharMetrics Plus database for the matched nested case-control study.

The researchers defined current FQ use as having an active prescription at index date or 30 days prior to the event date, recent FQ exposure was defined as FQ use within days 31 to 60, and past FQ use was defined as use within days 61 to 365 prior to the event date.

Overall, the odds ratio for the disproportionality analysis was 1.45. The adjusted risk ratios (RR) for current users compared with users of amoxicillin and azithromycin were 2.40 and 1.75, respectively. The adjusted RRs for recent and past FQ users when compared with users of amoxicillin and azithromycin were 1.47 and 1.06, respectively.

“These results show that the risk of aortic and mitral regurgitation is highest with current use followed by recent use. No risk was observed with past use of FQs. Future studies are necessary to confirm or refute these associations,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Etminan M, Sodhi M, Ganjizadeh-Zavareh S, et al. Oral fluoroquinolones and risk of mitral and aortic regurgitation [published online September 11, 2019]. JACC. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2019.07.035.