Comparative cardiovascular safety of GLP-1 receptor agonists versus other glucose-lowering agents in real-world patients with type 2 diabetes: a nationwide population-based cohort study

BACKGROUND: Current evidence about the cardiovascular safety of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1ra) possesses limited generalizability to real-world patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in usual practice. This study aimed to investigate the comparative cardiovascular safety of GLP-1ra in comparisons with dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor (DPP-4i), sulfonylurea (SU), and insulin in a real-world population with T2D. METHODS: Adults with newly-diagnosed T2D were identified from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database in 2003–2014. A prevalent new-user cohort design was adopted to include a broad representation of real-world T2D patients being treated with GLP-1ra. The between-group comparability of baseline patient characteristics was achieved by matching on (1) initiation time of study drugs, (2) prior exposure to glucose-lowering agents, and (3) diabetes severity and complications, comorbidities, and concomitant cardiovascular medications using propensity scores. The primary outcome was a composite of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events and assessed up to the end of 2015. Cox modeling was employed to assess the association between study drugs and outcomes. RESULTS: A total of 3195 GLP-1ra stable users was identified in 2011-2014. 1893, 1829, and 1367 GLP-1ra stable users were 1:1 matched to DPP-4i, SU and insulin users, respectively. Compared to DPP-4i, SU and insulin, the use of GLP-1ra was associated with a lower risk of composite CVD events [hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) 0.73 (0.57–0.96), 0.76 (0.57–1.00), and 0.81 (0.62–1.07), respectively]. Subgroup analyses revealed that GLP-1ra versus DPP-4i yielded a greater cardiovascular benefit in those without established CVD versus those with established CVD. CONCLUSIONS: This comparison study extends the supporting evidence for the cardiovascular safety of GLP-1ra to a broad spectrum of real-world T2D patients using GLP-1ra.