DAYTON— Local doctors will be listening carefully this afternoon, July 14, when a panel of experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are expected to announce a decision on whether the benefits of the diabetes drug Avandia outweigh its risk for heart attack and stroke.

“I’m as anxious as my patients are to hear something on this, whether we should continue this or not,” said Dr. Miguell Parilo, a diabetes specialist with the Bull Family Diabetes Center of Premier Health Partners. “Ever since this controversy began, I’ve had concern for my patients.”

Parilo says he no longer prescribes Avandia for his own patients, but a small percentage of those referred to him from other doctors are taking the drug to help control their blood sugar. In those cases, Parilo said he discusses with the patient whether a switch to a similar drug, Actos, might be safer.

After its introduction by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline 10 years ago, Avandia became the leading prescription for treating diabetes reaching more than $3 billion in sales worldwide. Sales began to drop three years ago when the first studies appeared linking Avandia to heart attacks and strokes.

Today, Glaxo’s revenues from Avandia are down to about $1 billion, with fewer and fewer physicians prescribing the medication, including doctors in the Dayton area, Parilo said. “When there’s a drug that has some controversy associated with it and there are appropriate alternatives, many doctors may turn away from that drug,” he said.

However, he cautioned patients not to discontinue Avandia without contacting their physician.

A study prepared by an employee of the FDA and released in June compared Avandia to Actos and found that the patients taking Avandia had a 27 percent greater risk of stroke, 25 percent greater risk of heart failure and a 13 percent higher risk of death than those taking Actos. Japanese pharmaceutical firm Takeda is the maker of Actos.

The debate over Avandia hit fever pitch this week when a 33-member FDA advisory committee began holding hearings on Monday on whether to pull the drug from the market. The panel is reportedly split, with some physician members arguing that data provided by Glaxo cannot be trusted and others arguing that the FDA data is too selective.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2437 or jdebrosse@DaytonDailyNews.com.