• Mikhail Kosiborod, Matthew A Cavender, Alex Z Fu, John P Wilding, Kamlesh Khunti, Reinhard W Holl, Anna Norhammar, Kåre I Birkeland, Marit Eika Jørgensen, Marcus Thuresson, Niki Arya, Johan Bodegård, Niklas Hammar, Peter Fenici, and CVD-REAL Investigators and Study Group*.
• From Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.K.); University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (M.A.C.); Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC (A.Z.F.); University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (J.P.W.); University of Leicester, United Kingdom (K.K.); University of Ulm, Germany (R.W.H.); Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden (A.N., N.H.); University of Oslo, Norway (K.I.B.); Oslo University Hospital, Norway (K.I.B.); Steno Diabetes Center, Copenhagen, Gentofte, Denmark (M.E.J.); National Institute of Public Health, Southern Denmark University, Copenhagen (M.E.J.); Statisticon AB, Uppsala, Sweden (M.T.); AstraZeneca, Gaithersburg, MD (N.A.); AstraZeneca, Oslo, Norway (J.B.); AstraZeneca Gothenburg, Sweden (N.H.); and AstraZeneca, Cambridge, United Kingdom (P.F.). mkosiborod@saint-lukes.org.
• Circulation. 2017 Jul 18; 136 (3): 249-259.

BackgroundReduction in cardiovascular death and hospitalization for heart failure (HHF) was recently reported with the sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor (SGLT-2i) empagliflozin in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who have atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. We compared HHF and death in patients newly initiated on any SGLT-2i versus other glucose-lowering drugs in 6 countries to determine if these benefits are seen in real-world practice and across SGLT-2i class.MethodsData were collected via medical claims, primary care/hospital records, and national registries from the United States, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Propensity score for SGLT-2i initiation was used to match treatment groups. Hazard ratios for HHF, death, and their combination were estimated by country and pooled to determine weighted effect size. Death data were not available for Germany.ResultsAfter propensity matching, there were 309 056 patients newly initiated on either SGLT-2i or other glucose-lowering drugs (154 528 patients in each treatment group). Canagliflozin, dapagliflozin, and empagliflozin accounted for 53%, 42%, and 5% of the total exposure time in the SGLT-2i class, respectively. Baseline characteristics were balanced between the 2 groups. There were 961 HHF cases during 190 164 person-years follow-up (incidence rate, 0.51/100 person-years). Of 215 622 patients in the United States, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, death occurred in 1334 (incidence rate, 0.87/100 person-years), and HHF or death in 1983 (incidence rate, 1.38/100 person-years). Use of SGLT-2i, versus other glucose-lowering drugs, was associated with lower rates of HHF (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% confidence interval, 0.51-0.73; P<0.001); death (hazard ratio, 0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.41-0.57; P<0.001); and HHF or death (hazard ratio, 0.54; 95% confidence interval, 0.48-0.60; P<0.001) with no significant heterogeneity by country.ConclusionsIn this large multinational study, treatment with SGLT-2i versus other glucose-lowering drugs was associated with a lower risk of HHF and death, suggesting that the benefits seen with empagliflozin in a randomized trial may be a class effect applicable to a broad population of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in real-world practice.Clinical Trial RegistrationURL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT02993614.© 2017 The Authors.

51 keywords...

hide…