Compared with placebo, no difference seen in growth of small abdominal aortic aneurysms at two years
WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Doxycycline does not significantly reduce aneurysm growth compared with placebo among patients with small infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysms, according to a study published in the May 26 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
B. Timothy Baxter, M.D., from the University of Nebraska in Omaha, and colleagues assessed whether doxycycline reduces the growth of abdominal aortic aneurysm during a two-year period. Patients ≥50 years with small (3.5 to 5.0 cm for men; 3.5 to 4.5 cm for women) infrarenal aneurysms were randomly assigned to either twice-daily 100 mg oral doxycycline (129 patients) or placebo (125 patients).
The researchers found that normal scores reflecting change in aortic diameter did not differ significantly between the two groups. For the doxycycline group, the mean baseline maximum transverse diameter was 4.3 cm versus 4.3 cm for placebo. At follow-up, the change in measured maximum transverse diameter was 0.36 cm in the doxycycline group versus 0.36 cm in the placebo group. No adverse effects caused a withdrawal from the study. Joint pain occurred in 65 percent of patients in the doxycycline group versus 63 percent in the placebo group.
“These findings do not support the use of doxycycline for reducing the growth of small abdominal aortic aneurysms,” the authors write.
One author disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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