The societal impact of early intensified treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Aim: The current study estimates the societal impact of early intensified treatment compared with initial monotherapy with subsequent treatment intensification in newly diagnosed adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Mexico. Methods: An individual patient-level simulation and a static cohort model were employed to simulate the treatment pathway and the probability of experiencing complications of diabetes. The avoided number of events was translated into avoided productivity losses, which were monetized using wages. Results: Patients on early intensified treatment experienced approximately 13,000 fewer complication events over 10 years. This was translated into a societal impact of $54 million (USD). Conclusion: Early treatment intensification is likely to be of particular benefit to health outcomes and productivity losses.

All-cause mortality and cardiovascular effects associated with the DPP-IV inhibitor sitagliptin compared with metformin, a retrospective cohort study on the Danish population

AIM

We performed a retrospective cohort study, investigating the clinical outcomes including mortality and cardiovascular disease of sitagliptin compared with metformin monotherapies.

METHODS

All patients receiving monotherapy with the dipeptidyl peptidase-IV inhibitors (DPP-IV) inhibitor sitagliptin between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2011 were identified. All-cause mortality and a composite endpoint of stroke, acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and all-cause mortality associated with sitagliptin monotherapy were compared with metformin monotherapy. In addition, as an indicator of efficacy we analysed the hazard ratio of changing treatment.

RESULTS

A total of 84 756 patients were included in the analysis, 1228 (1.4%) received sitagliptin monotherapy whereas the remaining 83 528 (98.6%) patients received metformin monotherapy. Patients using metformin were younger than patients using sitagliptin (59.0 ± 15.2 vs. 62.5 ± 13.1) were less often male (51.6 vs. 54.2%) and had longer treatment duration with monotherapy (1.8 ± 1.3 vs. 0.9 ± 1.1 years). Compared with patients receiving metformin, patients using sitagliptin showed no statistically significant excess risks of all-cause mortality [hazard ratio, 1.25; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.92-1.71; p = 0.153] or the composite endpoint (hazard ratio, 1.22; 95% CI, 0.92-1.61; p = 0.164). However, the use of sitagliptin monotherapy was associated with an increased likelihood of changing treatment (hazard ratio, 4.88; 95% CI, 4.46-5.35; p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

In a retrospective analysis, sitagliptin monotherapy compared with metformin monotherapy was not associated with any statistical significant increased risk of all-cause mortality or the composite endpoint, but was associated with an increased likelihood of changing glucose-lowering treatment.