According to research and a new FDA warning, fluoroquinolone antibiotic drugs may cause heart problems including aortic aneurysms and dissections. 

In December 2018, the FDA warned that a class of common antibiotics could cause rare but various side effects related to cardiac health. The drugs in question are fluoroquinolone antibiotic drugs used to treat common infections. Many people have taken them at some point in their life and may not remember doing so. More than 20 million prescriptions for fluoroquinolone are written each year.

These drugs include:

• Moxifloxacin (Avelox)
• Ciprofloxacin (Cipro)
• Levofloxacin (Levaquin)
• Gemifloxacin (Factive)
• Norfloxacin (Noroxin)
• Ofloxacin (Floxin)

If you took a drug like Cipro or Avelox and experienced an aortic aneurysm or dissection, it may have been linked to your use of the drug. It is possible that makers of the drugs may have misrepresented these drugs as safe and effective when they really pose a danger to human health.

Unfortunately, research links these drugs to an increase in the likelihood that a person will suffer an aortic aneurysm or dissection. The aorta is the main artery in the body that brings oxygenated blood from the heart to the rest of the body.

The walls of the aorta are made of a number of layers. An aortic aneurysm is a term used to describe an event when one or multiple of these layers breaks, and a bulge forms. In the case of an aortic dissection, all of the layers break and blood spills into the body. This can be extremely dangerous.

The FDA’s warning about the link between fluoroquinolone antibiotic drugs and these events did note that though these events are serious, they are rare among fluoroquinolone users. Reportedly, patients who are already predisposed to heart problems, blockages or aneurysms are at a higher risk of developing these problems.

Additionally, the FDA urges medical professionals to seek out alternative treatments for their patients’ bacterial infections, especially in the case of patients who may be predisposed to heart problems or who have suffered aortic issues in the past.

The December 2018 warning comes on the heels of a preceding May 2017 by the FDA said that there was not a solid connection between drugs like Cipro and aortic problems.

Since the FDA made its warning in December, numerous news sources including Forbes and others have covered the issue, warning patients of the risks of the drugs. Allegedly, the results of four studies considered together suggest that fluoroquinolone drugs may increase the risk of aneurysms and dissections according to Forbes. 

For a long time fluoroquinolone antibiotic drugs have been linked to a breakdown of collagen. Some research suggests that these drugs can cause tendons to weaken, as tendons are made of collagen. In 2015, two studies suggested that the connection between fluoroquinolone antibiotics and collagen breakdown may extend beyond tendons, and may affect the heart.

The walls of the aorta are made up in part of collagen, and the 2015 studies suggested that the collagen in the aortic walls may be weakened with fluoroquinolone use, causing them to burt, bulge, and rupture.