Major adverse limb events in type 2 diabetes patients receiving glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists versus sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors: A retrospective multi-institutional study

Aims: To compare the risk of incident major adverse limb events (MALEs) between patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) who initiated glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) or sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 Inhibitors (SGLT2Is). Methods: T2DM patients with prescriptions of GLP-1 RAs or SGLT2Is between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2018 were retrospectively identified from a multi-institutional database. We used inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to balance covariates, and compared MALEs between GLP-1 RAs and SGLT2Is initiators using Fine and Gray subdistribution hazard model. Results: There were 3,087 patients in the GLP-1 RAs group and 19,101 patients in the SGLT2Is group. After IPTW adjustment, the mean ages were 59.0 and 58.8 years, mean durations of diabetes were 6.4 years and 6.1 years, and 25.4% and 28.4% of the patients had cardiovascular disease, respectively. Lower extremity arterial disease was uncommon in both groups (2%). Those who initiated GLP-1 RAs treatment were associated with reduced rate of MALEs (adjusted subdistribution hazard ratio [HR] 0.62, 95% confidence interval 0.46-0.83). Conclusions: T2DM patients who received GLP-1 RAs treatment were associated with lower risk of MALEs compared to those who received SGLT2Is treatment. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study aimed to compare the risk of MALEs between T2DM patients who initiated GLP-1 RAs versus SGLT2Is, and found that patients who received GLP-1 RAs treatment had a lower risk of MALEs.