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drug_recall erythromycinErythromycin is an antibiotic that has been used for the past several decades. Erythromycin is a common, popular medication for certain infections caused by bacteria, including bronchitis, diphtheria, Legionnaires'' disease, pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia, rheumatic fever, venereal disease (VD) and ear, intestine, lung, urinary tract and skin infections. Now, a new study raises concerns over the safety of erythromycin, especially when used in combination with certain drugs for infections and calcium channel blockers for high blood pressure.
The use of erythromycin was generally believed to be safe until a recent study published in the September 9, 2004 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine found the risk of death caused by sudden cardiac death was up to five times higher in people taking the drug in combination with certain drugs. The use of erythromycin was considered to have low risk of side effects. The risk of sudden cardiac death is higher among erythromycin users, and the overall risk among healthy people is still considered very low. What is so worrisome is how extremely large the risk does become when the other drugs slow the breakdown of erythromycin, making its concentration higher.
When high levels of erythromycin is present, it traps salt inside the resting heart muscle cells and extends the time until the next heartbeat starts, which can set off an abnormal and potentially deadly rhythm. The risk is so high that sudden cardiac death could occur in six deaths for every 10,000 people using erythromycin while on other drugs for the standard two weeks. The study included in The New England Journal of Medicine was the first to systematically document increased risk of sudden cardiac death after focusing on combining erythromycin pills with certain medicines for infections and calcium channel blockers for high blood pressure.
There are other antibiotics that appear to provide the same antimicrobial activity without building up in the blood the way erythromycin has shown it can. Therefore, doctors should remain extremely cautious when choosing to give patients erythromycin and to use an alternative if any drug may interact. Some medications identified to cause erythromycin to build up in the bloodstream include antifungal medications Nizoral and Diflucan, select drugs treating high blood pressure or heart disease like Cardizem, Cartia, Dilacor, Diltia, Tiazac, Teczem, Calan, Covera-HS, Isoptin, Verelan and Tarka, anti-HIV drug Crixivan, antibiotic drug Tao and the antidepressant drug Serzone. The group of drugs that causes erythromycin to build up in the blood stream is called CYP3A inhibitors.
The erythromycin study researchers came to their conclusions after reviewing the medical records of Tennessee Medicaid recipients who died from 1988 to 1993. Researchers looked for an association between erythromycin use and sudden cardiac death to see if the risk was affected by use of drugs known to increase the blood level of the antibiotic. In that time frame, nearly 1,500 sudden cardiac deaths had occurred, with the rate of sudden cardiac death twice as high among the people using erythromycin. Use of erythromycin and other CYP3A inhibitors, described as having “unacceptably high risk” by a study researcher, is especially dangerous because of the widespread use of erythromycin and the high number of Americans that die each year of sudden cardiac death.
For years, erythromycin has been used as a broad based antibiotic to treat bacterial infections and used in HIV positive individuals. The common use of the drug has been under the assumption that the drug was considered to be safe and effective. A new ...
Erythromycin is a common antibiotic drug that is used to treat a wide range of symptoms. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown the drug generally thought of as safe actually dramatically increases the risk of cardiac arrest. Eryt...
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