Study Finds Alogliptin Slows Atherosclerosis in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) inhibitors have an anti-atherosclerotic benefit in both GLP-1-dependent and GLP-1-independent manners.

A Japanese team looked at the effects of alogliptin (Nesina/Takeda Pharmaceuticals), a DPP4 inhibitor, on the progression of carotid atherosclerosis in patients with type 2 diabetes. Tomoya Mita and colleagues in Tokyo and Osaka, in research to be presented June 8 as an abstract at the 2015 American Diabetes Association annual meeting in Boston, MA, will report on their findings.

The study included 341 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus at 11 clinical units. They were randomly assigned to receive either alogliptin or conventional treatment.

Primary outcomes were changes in mean common and maximum intima-media thickness (IMT) of the carotid artery. That is considered a surrogate marker for cardiovascular disease, measured by carotid arterial echography. Treatment lasted for 24 months.

The change in HbA1C improved significantly in the patients who got alogliptin, but not in the control group.

They concluded that “alogliptin treatment prevented to progression of carotid IMT in patients with type 2 diabetes free of cardiovascular disease compared with conventional treatment.

The drug was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2013.