Liraglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in a real world type 2 diabetes cohort

In the last years, due to new regulatory guidelines requiring a stringent documentation of cardiovascular (CV) safety of novel drugs for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular outcomes safety trials (CVOTs) are requested. CVOTs increase the knowledge about the safety profile of the new drugs, but they have intrinsic limits that make difficult their transferability to clinical practice. For this reason, real world evidence is considered an important complement to experimental data. Among the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, liraglutide in the LEADER CVOT demonstrated superiority in reducing the risk of major CV events (MACEs) vs. placebo. We conducted an observational, retrospective, longitudinal study based on 307 patients with T2DM treated with liraglutide under routine clinical practice conditions. Real world impact of liraglutide on metabolic control, CV risk factors, hypoglycemia and CV events was assessed. Improvements during 36 months were found in HbA1c (-1.0%; p < 0.0001), fasting blood glucose (-17.6 mg/dL; p < 0.0001), body weight (-3.2 kg; p < 0.0001), waist circumference (-1.45 cm; p = 0.004), systolic blood pressure (-10.41 mmHg; p < 0.0001), diastolic blood pressure (-3.69 mmHg; p < 0.0001), total cholesterol (-7.96 mg/dL; p =0.008) and triglycerides (-20.60 mg/dl; p = 0.01). No severe hypoglycemia occurred. Incidence of MACEs in this cohort was lower than in the LEADER study (2.59 vs. 3.4 events per 100 person-years), confirming CV safety of liraglutide even in the real world. On the other hand, a higher incidence of CV event in patients with established CV disease was documented (8.1 events per 100 person-years), in spite of the use of liraglutide. In conclusion, 36-month durability and CV safety of liraglutide were documented in a real world cohort of T2DM patients, with sustained benefits on a large array of CV risk factors.