Androcur the security wants to alert the greatest number of patients with a risk of meningioma - France info
After the discovery of a link between Androcur and the risk of appearance of meningioma, health insurance decided to contact all people under treatment. 250,000 women took Androcur between 2006 and 2015.
If you have taken Androcur , you will probably receive a health insurance news letter and the drug agency, to inform you of the risk of development of a generally benign brain tumor, meningioma, generated by this hormonal treatment.
For their part, the prescribing doctors were also alerted. Update with our journalist Géraldine Zamansky .
A letter for each patient
These letters are essential. But receiving alone, at home, these letters, is certainly scary. It is indeed registered that meningiomas "may cause serious disorders that may require heavy surgery. And that their risk is multiplied by 7 beyond 6 months of use from 25mg per day ... Everyone is therefore invited to consult their doctor to find out whether to pass an MRI.
A field of alert expanded to as many patients as possible
Yes, all the doctors who have written an Androcur prescription in the past 24 months are now explicitly alerted. They will therefore be able to contact their patients treated before. And this can represent a large number of people. Because theoretically, Androcur, is especially indicated in the event of serious excess of hair, major hirsutism, or certain prostate cancers.
But it was in fact prescribed to patients with endometriosis or acne. Health insurance thus identified more than 250,000 women treated by this medication between 2006 and 2015. Less than one in six suffered from hirsutism ... and at least 500 developed a meningioma that had to be operated. With 1.6% death ... and almost 30% suffer from epilepsy ... terrible situations while their troubles could have been treated otherwise ...
New: an information certificate to be signed by patients
This is a fairly rare system that will be set up in July for new prescriptions and in January 2020 for order renewals. This is an information certificate that should be signed by the doctor and his patient at the start of treatment and then every year. Without her, the pharmacist will not give the medication. This document explains the risks of meningioma and indicates the corresponding symptoms.
Objective: sensitize doctors at the risk of meningioma
Yes, thanks to all this device, doctors will now think quickly of meningioma! Because many people testify to the fact that their symptoms have not been taken seriously quickly ...
Worse, some continued the treatment even after being operated because neither their neurosurgeon nor their doctor had made the link with the Androcur and while a formal contraindication appears on his notice since 2011. The new certificate requires the realization of an MRI before each start of treatment. So let's hope that this mobilization really prevents new dramas.
Androcur the security wants to alert the greatest number of patients with a risk of meningioma - France info
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