Azithromycin, a common antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, does not increase risk of ventricular arrhythmia, a rapid, irregular heartbeat, according to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Azithromycin belongs to the macrolides class of drugs. Another drug in this class, erythromycin, is linked to ventricular arrhythmia, a potentially life-threatening condition.
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Researchers examined data involving 29 million people from Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. The data was drawn from community settings, and not hospital settings. Of the 29 million people, 14 million were new antibiotic users.
Around 12,874 new antibiotic users developed ventricular arrhythmia, of which 30 were new users of azithromycin. Researchers also compared the use of azithromycin to the use of amoxicillin, a common antibiotic from the penicillin class of drugs, and found no increased risk of ventricular arrhythmia among azithromycin users. However, compared to people not using antibiotics, azithromycin users did display an increased risk of ventricular arrhythmia.
"This finding suggests that the risk of ventricular arrhythmia is more likely to be due to a person's poor health and caused by their infection, rather than to azithromycin itself," said Dr. Gianluca Trifirò, of University of Messina in Italy. "This finding was confirmed in several sensitivity analyses and replicated in single databases participating in the study."