Canagliflozin Works as Both Primary and Secondary Prevention in Patients with Diabetes Type 2

Canagliflozin, a sodium glucose transport inhibitor, was reported to decrease the incidence of cardiovascular and renal events in patients with type 2 diabetes and elevated cardiovascular risk in an industry-funded, international, randomized, placebo-controlled study (NEJM JW Cardiol Sep 2017 and N Engl J Med 2017; 377:644). Now, researchers reanalyze the data to determine whether the effects were similar for patients with or without previous cardiovascular events.

There were 3486 patients in the primary prevention group (34% of the study sample) and 6656 with known cardiovascular disease in the secondary prevention group (66%). The drug and placebo groups had similar discontinuation rates (30%) and similar baseline medical and demographic c…