Pneumonia

SGLT2 inhibitors were associated with a decreased risk for pneumonia and sepsis compared with DPP-4 inhibitors in patients with type 2 diabetes.

“Mechanistic insights into lower infection complications with SGLT2 inhibitors merit further investigations,” they concluded. Among all patients included in the analysis, the mean age was 60±11.07 years, 61.1% were men, and approximately 45% had T2D for more than 10 years. Compared with DPP-4 inhibitors, the researchers found that SGLT2 inhibitors were associated with a decreased risk of death related to pneumonia (aHR, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.29-0.58; P <.001), sepsis (aHR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.18-0.84; P <.05), and infectious disease (aHR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.32-0.57; P <.001). Irrespective of T2D duration, patients initiated on SGLT2 inhibitors had a 37% decreased risk for incident pneumonia (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.63; 95% CI, 0.55-0.72; P <.001) and a 48% decreased risk for incident sepsis (aHR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.44-0.62; P <.001) compared with those initiated on DPP-4 inhibitors. Risk of sepsis and pneumonia in patients initiated on SGLT2 inhibitors and DPP-4 inhibitors. The researchers found that pneumonia occurred among 309 patients in the SGLT2 group within a median follow-up period of 2.29 years (incidence rate [IR], 11.38), compared with 961 of those in the DPP-4 group within a median follow-up period of 2.33 years (IR, 20.45). During a median follow-up period of 2.31 and 2.35 years, sepsis occurred among 164 patients in the SGLT2 inhibitor group (IR, 6.00) and 610 in the DPP-4 inhibitor group (IR, 12.88), respectively. Patients in the SGLT2 and DPP-4 groups most commonly received empagliflozin (64.04%) and linagliptin (26.43%), respectively. Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) taking sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors were at decreased risk for pneumonia and sepsis compared with those taking dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors, according to study findings published in Diabetes & Metabolism. Researchers used the Clinical Data Analysis and Reporting System, a clinical registry in Hong Kong, to capture demographic and health information from patients with T2D who initiated treatment with either SGLT2 inhibitors (n=10,706) or DPP-4 inhibitors (n=18,281) between 2015 and 2019. Researchers utilized 1:2 propensity-score matching to balance baseline characteristics between patients in the SGLT2 group and those in the DPP-4 group. The primary outcomes were incident pneumonia and sepsis; secondary outcomes were the number of deaths related to pneumonia, sepsis, and infectious diseases; urinary tract infections; urogenital infections; and diabetic ketoacidosis