Background: Sodium glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2is) prevent hospitalization resulting from heart failure (HHF). However, patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus use multiple antihyperglycemic drugs to achieve glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) targets. In these drug combinations, the risk of HHF is unpredictable and so is the parallel effect of glucose-lowering.
Purpose: To examine the impact of antihyperglycemic drugs and their association on HHF.
Data sources: Forty randomized controlled trials (RCTs) reporting HHF.
Study selection: Published RCTs were the data source.
Data extraction: Incidence rates of HHF.
Data synthesis: Random additive-effects network meta-analysis showed that metformin (P = 0.55), sulfonylureas (P = 0.51), glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor-agonist (P = 0.16), and dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors (DPP4is; P = 0.54) were neutral on the risk of HHF. SGLT2is and SGLT2is + DPP4is reduced the risk of HHF with a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.68 (95% CI, 0.60-0.76; P < 0.0001) and 0.70 (95% CI, 0.60-0.81; P < 0.0001), respectively. Increased risk of HHF was associated with thiazolidinediones (TZDs) as monotherapy or in combination with DPP4is (HR: 1.45; 95% CI, 1.18-1.78; P = 0.0004) and 1.49 (95% CI, 1.18-1.88; P = 0.0008), respectively. Regardless of the therapy, a 1% reduction in HbA1c reduced the risk of HHF by 31.3% (95% CI, 9-48; P = 0.009).
Limitations: There are no data to verify drug combinations available for clinical use and to discriminate the effect of drugs within each of the therapeutic classes.
Conclusions: The risk of HHF is reduced by SGLT2is as monotherapy or in combination with DPP4is and increased by TZDs as monotherapy or in combination. Glucose-lowering provides an additive effect of reducing HHF.
Keywords: anti-hyperglycemic drugs; heart failure; type 2 diabetes mellitus.
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