Treatment of diabetes: Crossing to the other side

• Main Authors: Nikitas P. Skliros, Charalambos Vlachopoulos, Dimitrios Tousoulis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2016-09-01
• Series: Hellenic Journal of Cardiology
• Subjects: Type 2 diabetes mellitus; Antidiabetic drugs; Cardiovascular safety; Cardiovascular disease; Cardiovascular outcome trials
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1109966616300823

Type 2 diabetes mellitus affects nearly four hundred million people worldwide, and one of its major complications is cardiovascular disease. The evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of antidiabetic medication has been a challenging issue. Large clinical trials of new antidiabetic medications have used the non-inferiority approach to ensure primary safety of the drug before its incorporation into clinical practice. Currently, the trend is to prove superiority, that is, to prove that the new drug has additional beneficial effects to those of standard medications. In this review, we present the results of recent clinical trials on type 2 diabetes mellitus medications and outline what can be anticipated from ongoing clinical trials.