FRIDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- Patients in some ethnic groups have higher risks of adverse events when taking cardiovascular drugs, according to a review published online May 5 in BMJ. For example, black patients who are taking angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors have three times the risk of developing angioedema as other patients, the report indicates.
Robin Ferner, of City Hospital in Birmingham, U.K., and colleagues reviewed 564 studies containing references to ethnicity and an adverse drug reaction, including 24 studies with data on adverse drug reactions to cardiovascular drugs in at least two ethnic groups.
Overall, black patients taking ACE inhibitors had three times the angioedema risk and black patients on thrombolytic therapy had 1.5 times the risk of intracranial hemorrhage as other patients. East Asians taking ACE inhibitors had 2.7 times the risk of developing cough as whites.
"Ethnic group may therefore be one determinant of harms of a given treatment in the individual patient, either because it acts as a surrogate measure of genetic make-up or because cultural factors alter the risk," the authors write. "Data are sparse, and regulators should consider asking for better data before licensing."
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