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Metformin and risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in diabetes patients
1Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China; Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China; Division of Environmental Health and Occupational Medicine of the National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Purpose:
This study aimed to investigate whether metformin can affect risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients.
Methods:
T2D patients newly diagnosed during 1999-2005 were enrolled from the reimbursement database of Taiwan's National Health Insurance system and followed up to 31 December 2011. Analyses were conducted in an unmatched cohort (92,272 ever-users and 10,697 never-users of metformin) and a propensity score (PS) matched pair cohort (10,697 ever-users and 10,697 never-users). Cox regression incorporated into the inverse probability of treatment weighting using the PS was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs).
Results:
In the unmatched cohort, 2573 never-users and 13,840 ever-users developed COPD with respective incidences of 5994.64 and 3393.19 per 100,000 person-years. The overall HR was 0.560 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.537-0.584). HRs for the first (<25.27months), second (25.27-55.97months) and third (>55.97months) tertiles of cumulative duration were 1.021 (0.975-1.070), 0.575 (0.548-0.603) and 0.265 (0.252-0.280), respectively. Analyses of the matched cohort showed an overall HR of 0.643 (0.605-0.682), with HRs of 1.212 (1.122-1.309), 0.631 (0.578-0.689) and 0.305 (0.273-0.340) for the respective tertiles.
Conclusion:
A reduced risk of COPD is observed in metformin users with T2D.
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