The cardiovascular benefits of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are likely to override the risk of harm in many patients with type 2 diabetes, a new study has found.
However the large systematic review and meta-analysis published online in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, highlighted significant side effects including increased genital infections, and called for some caution as most of the available data came from a single trial of empagliflozin.
Co-author, Professor Bruce Neal, a senior director of The George Institute for Global Health, and Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney, said the results looked “very promising” for the SGLT2 class of drugs, but that “we really need confirmation with further trials of other drugs.”
“Fortunately there are several tens of thousands of patients in ongoing large trials of other SGLT2 inhibitors so we should know much more over coming years,” he said.
He told the limbic that the significant take home message for clinicians was that “with clear protection against cardiovascular outcomes, net clinical effects of SGLT2 inhibitors look much more likely to be beneficial than harmful, although important side effects have been identified.”