Introduction: The aim was to compare clinical outcomes by different dosing frequencies of insulin detemir (detemir) used over 52 weeks in various regimens.
Methods: This analysis involved French patients enrolled in PREDICTIVE (a large-scale, multinational, observational study of empirical use of detemir in everyday clinical practice) for whom data have been collected over 52 weeks. Three cohorts were considered: patients with type 1 diabetes; patients with type 2 diabetes using detemir in a basal insulin plus oral antidiabetic drug (OAD) regimen; patients with type 2 diabetes using detemir as part of basal-bolus insulin therapy. In each cohort, data were stratified according to detemir dosing frequency at the beginning and end of 52 weeks: once daily (o.d.) at the beginning and end; twice daily (b.i.d.) at the beginning and end; o.d. at the beginning, but b.i.d. at the end. Endpoints assessed included glycated hemoglobin, fasting plasma glucose, hypoglycemia, weight, and insulin dose.
Results: There were improvements in glycemic control and tolerability in all subgroups. Patients completing on o.d. dosing tended to have better outcomes than those completing on b.i.d. dosing in all cohorts, and o.d. administration was associated with lower insulin dosing. There was little evidence that switching from o.d. to b.i.d. dosing influenced outcomes other than insulin dose. However, there were some baseline differences between subgroups selected for o.d. and b.i.d. dosing that might have influenced outcomes: many patients appeared to have been continued on previous basal dosing frequencies; for others, b.i.d. detemir dosing seemed to be used to intensify previous therapy.
Conclusions: With the caveat that empirical choices of dose frequency were made, this analysis shows that empirical use of o.d. detemir produces results at least as good as empirical use of b.i.d. detemir in basal-bolus-treated type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and in basal plus OAD-treated type 2 diabetes.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00659295.