Liraglutide May Reduce Risk for CV Events in Patients with Diabetes

A new randomized control trial found that liraglutide reduced the risk for nonfatal strokes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and cardiovascular related death in patients with a high risk for cardiovascular events and type 2 diabetes.

The study was conducted using data from 32 countries at 410 sites including 9340 patients with type 2 diabetes and a hemoglobin level of 7.0% or more. Participants completed a 2-week placebo run to establish whether they would adhere to the injection regimen. After 2 weeks, 4668 patients were randomly assigned to receive 1.8 mg of liraglutide, and 4672 participants were assigned to receive 1.8 mg of the placebo in addition to standard care. Researchers followed up with participants for a minimum of 42 months and a maximum of 60 months, with a median time of 3.5 years. The time-to-event was measured according to the first occurrence of cardiovascular related death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke in patients.
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Their results showed that 13% of patients in the liraglutide group and 14.9% of patients in the placebo group experienced either a nonfatal stroke, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or death from a cardiovascular event. Death occurred in 4.7% of patients in the liraglutide group and 6.0% of patients died in the placebo group. According to their results, liraglutide did lower the rate of nonfatal stroke or nonfatal myocardial infarction, but there was not significant difference between the groups.

In addition, there were more patients who discontinued the trial in the liraglutide group than in the placebo group due to adverse events, predominately due to gastrointestinal disorders.

Researchers found that liraglutide did decreases the risk for cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes who had a hemoglobin level of 7.0% or more. Their findings suggest that liraglutide may be beneficial for high risk patients.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Marso SP, Daniels GH, Brown-Frandsen K, et al. Liraglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in type II diabetes [published online August 2, 2016]. The New England Journal of Medicine. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1603827.