Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects Across Nine Glucose-Lowering Drug Classes in Type 2 Diabetes: Extension of the...

Understanding heterogeneous patient responses to various glucose-lowering therapies is crucial for advancing personalized treatment approaches and optimizing outcomes for type 2 diabetes mellitus. While average treatment effects are known for many drug classes, patient responses may differ by underlying clinical and demographic factors. We hypothesize that major glucose-lowering drug classes exhibit heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE) across patient subgroups defined by key clinical and demographic characteristics.

This is a large-scale observational cohort study replicated in six data-sources across the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics network. New-user, active-comparator cohorts were constructed for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus initiating one of the nine antihyperglycemic drug classes. Large-scale propensity score adjustment for measured confounding, empirical calibration using negative control outcomes, and random-effects meta-analysis were employed to estimate calibrated hazard ratios (HRs). HTE was assessed by comparing differences in log HRs across 10 demographic and clinical subgroups.

Evidence of HTE was observed across hyperlipidemia, hypertension, obesity, and sex subgroups. Biguanides (vs. DPP-4i) were protective against acute myocardial infarction in patients with hyperlipidemia, and against heart failure hospitalization in patients with obesity. SGLT-2 inhibitors (vs. GLP-1 receptor agonists) reduced stroke risk only in non-obese patients. Sex-specific patterns also emerged: women taking GLP-1 receptor agonists had a higher risk of diarrhea, and women taking SGLT-2 inhibitors had a lower risk of stroke compared with DPP-4 inhibitors; these associations were not seen for male patients.

This hypothesis-generating study identified several potential signals (blood pressure status, lipid status, obesity status, and sex) where there exists treatment effect heterogeneity for several classes of type 2 diabetes mellitus drugs. These preliminary findings highlight the potential for personalized type 2 diabetes mellitus treatment recommendations based on patient characteristics.