The anti-cholesterol drug fenofibrate appears to reduce risks of amputation for diabetics by as much as 36 percent, a study has found.
The study was published in a special edition on diabetes of The Lancet, which included another study on how rigorous monitoring and control of blood sugar reduces heart attacks.
In the first study, researchers in Australia ran a five-year trial involving 9,795 diabetic patients. Almost 5,000 were given fenofibrate, produced by Belgian drugs maker Solvay, while the rest were given a placebo.
By the end of the trial, 115 patients had had lower-limb amputations. The risk of first-time amputation was 36 percent lower for patients given fenofibrate compared with a placebo.
"Treatment with fenofibrate was associated with a lower risk of amputations, particularly minor amputations" below the ankle, wrote the team, led by Anthony Keech and Kushwin Rajamani at the National Health and Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Center at the University of Sydney.
"These findings could lead to a change in standard treatment for the prevention of diabetes-related lower-limb amputations."
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