Suppression of endogenous insulin secretion by exogenous insulin in patients with insulinoma

The early effect of sunitinib on insulin clearance in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma

AIMS

In patients with diabetes treated with sunitinib symptomatic hypoglycaemia has been reported. To explore the mechanism of this adverse effect we performed a prospective study to investigate the effect of sunitinib on insulin concentration, insulin clearance and insulin sensitivity.

METHODS

We studied the early effects of sunitinib on insulin sensitivity and insulin clearance with a hyperinsulinaemic euglycaemic clamp (insulin infusion rate 60 mU m−2 min−1; steady-state 90–120 min) in patients with renal cell carcinoma before and 1 week after the start of sunitinib 50 mg day−1. Insulin sensitivity index (SI) was defined as steady-state glucose disposal divided by the steady-state plasma insulin.

RESULTS

Ten patients (one with diabetes, treated with metformin) were included in the study protocol. Steady-state insulin concentrations during the clamp increased after 1 week of sunitinib (from 128.9 ± 9.0 mU l−1 to 170.8 ± 12.8 mU l−1, P < 0.05; 95% CI on difference − 64.3, −19.6). The calculated insulin sensitivity index decreased from 0.22 ± 0.04 before to 0.18 ± 0.02 μmol kg−1 min−1 per mU l−1 insulin (P < 0.05; 95% CI on difference 0.07, 0.08). As the insulin infusion rate was similar for both clamps, the increased steady-state insulin concentration indicates reduced insulin clearance.

CONCLUSION

Sunitinib affects insulin clearance which could possibly lead to overexposure to insulin in patients using insulin or insulin-secretion stimulating agents.

Gastric bypass alters both glucose-dependent and glucose-independent regulation of islet hormone secretion

OBJECTIVE

Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (GB) is characterized by accentuated but short-lived postprandial elevations of blood glucose and insulin. This profile has been attributed to effects of relative hyperglycemia to directly stimulate β-cells and an augmented incretin effect. An additional glucose-independent stimulation of insulin secretion in GB subjects was hypothesized.

METHODS

Fifteen subjects with prior GB, six matched obese non surgical controls, and seven lean individuals were recruited. Islet hormones were measured before and after meal ingestion during hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemic clamps to minimize the direct effects of glycemia and glucose-dependent gastrointestinal hormones on insulin secretion.

RESULTS

The GB subjects had less suppression of fasting β-cell secretion during the insulin clamp compared to controls. In addition, meal-induced insulin secretion increased in the GB subjects but not controls during fixed sub-basal glycemia. In contrast, the glucagon responses to hypoglycemia and meal ingestion were lower in the GB subjects than controls.

CONCLUSIONS

Among subjects with GB, the response of insulin and glucagon secretion to decreasing blood glucose is blunted, but meal-induced insulin secretion is stimulated even at fixed systemic sub-basal glycemia. These findings indicate that, following GB, islet hormone secretion is altered as a result of factors beyond circulatory glucose levels.

A fast generalizable solution method for glucose control algorithms

In critical care tight control of blood glucose levels has been shown to lead to better clinical outcomes. The need to develop new protocols for tight glucose control, as well as the opportunity to optimize a variety of other drug therapies, has led to resurgence in model-based medical decision support in this area. One still valid hindrance to developing new model-based protocols using so-called virtual patients, retrospective clinical data, and Monte Carlo methods is the large amount of computational time and resources needed. This paper develops fast analytical-based methods for insulin-glucose system model that are generalizable to other similar systems. Exploiting the structure and partial solutions in a subset of the model is the key in finding accurate fast solutions to the full model. This approach successfully reduced computing time by factors of 5600-144000 depending on the numerical error management method, for large (50-164 patients) virtual trials and Monte Carlo analysis. It thus allows new model-based or model-derived protocols to be rapidly developed via extensive simulation. The new method is rigorously compared to existing standard numerical solutions and is found to be highly accurate to within 0.2%.