Duloxetine calms overactive bladder in women
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The drug duloxetine (sold as Cymbalta) relieves symptoms of overactive bladder in women, according to a study.
Dr. Richard C. Bump from Lilly Research Laboratories, Indianapolis, Indiana, and colleagues evaluated the efficacy and safety of duloxetine versus placebo in 306 women with symptoms of overactive bladder.
Women taking duloxetine showed significant decreases in number of urinary incontinence episodes per 24 hours, increases in average daytime voiding interval, and decreases in urinary incontinence episodes overall, compared to women taking placebo.
Voiding frequency improved progressively over the 12 weeks of the study, they found, whereas reductions in urinary incontinence episodes were relatively constant beyond 4 weeks of treatment.
Duloxetine treatment was associated with significant improvements in several quality of life measures, and a significantly greater percentage of patients using duloxetine than those using placebo reported that their condition was better.
Side effects such as nausea, dry mouth, or dizziness, were more commonly reported by duloxetine-treated patients, the researchers note, and a significantly higher proportion of duloxetine-treated women (28 percent) than placebo-treated women (5 percent) dropped out of the study because of adverse events.
Increasing the dose of the drug, Bump said, has been shown to significantly reduce the incidence of adverse events, especially nausea, at the start of treatment. “Dose escalation plus proactive counseling of patients reduced the incidence of discontinuations due to adverse events (in another study) to a level similar to that observed with placebo,” he added.
Bump noted in comments to Reuters Health that duloxetine, “while approved for the treatment of women with moderate to severe stress urinary incontinence in 47 countries, is not approved anywhere for the treatment of women with overactive bladder and should not be used for this purpose.”
The current findings, he added, “simply provide evidence for the concept” that the duloxetine and other like-drugs “may have potential for the treatment of this bothersome condition.”
SOURCE: BJU International August 2007.
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