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VIDEO: Positive CV outcomes with SGLT2 inhibitors mark ‘an exciting time’
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ORLANDO, Fla. — Raymond R. Townsend, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, discusses the promise of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2, or SGLT2, inhibitors in improving CV outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Offering background on the “problems” physicians caring for this population face using other available glucose-lowering agents and the “little evidence” for benefits to CVD and mortality, Townsend provides investigator insight on results from an ambulatory BP-monitoring trial looking at canagliflozin (Invokana, Janssen) to treat diabetes with hypertension.
“We have a multitude of medications, most of them associated with weight gain or weight neutrality, not weight loss,” Townsend said. “What we’ve demonstrated is what you would hope to see … and we were able to capture information on the first-dose effect of an SGLT2 inhibitor, at two different doses.”
He discusses the values in the approach, including effects on triglycerides, uric acid and HF, as well as how the new class of antihyperglycemic drugs fits into practice.
“It’s an exciting time … for both patients as well as physicians and research investigators because there are a lot of really important questions left to answer, but finally there is a tool that we all feel pretty cool about using in the battle against managing the elevated glucose in patients with type 2 diabetes,” Townsend said.