Published 12 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1061
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1061

Practice

Drug Points

Rimonabant may induce atrial fibrillation

Giuseppe Cocco, MD, FESC, cardiology, David Chu, PhD, traditional Chinese medicine

1 Cardiology Office, POB 119, Marktgasse 10a, CH-4310 Rheinfelden 1

Correspondence to: G Cocco praxis@cocco.ch

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Rimonabant is a selective cannabinoid-1 receptor blocker that has been shown to reduce weight and improve several cardiovascular risk factors in obese patients.1 2 3 4 In 2004 an editorial stated that rimonabant was "promising in the prevention of cardiovascular events in obese patients."5 In a review article, although the frequent occurrence of psychiatric adverse events was mentioned, rimonabant was still recommended in the treatment of overweight patients with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome in whom lifestyle changes are not sufficiently effective. 6 7 The drug was recently withdrawn by the European Medicines Agency (www.nice.org.uk/TA144), but it is likely to remain available over the counter and through the internet. We report two cases of atrial fibrillation in overweight patients treated with rimonabant.

Both patients were unable to reduce their body weight with lifestyle interventions and their physicians prescribed 20 mg/day rimonabant.

During the first two weeks of therapy the patient reported mild . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ