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We lack safe, effective therapies for walking impairment — a major quality-of-life issue — in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). The only guideline-recommended therapy, cilostazol, is seldom used because of its common side effects and a black box warning in patients with heart failure. Based on mounting evidence that glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists reduce vascular inflammation, researchers tested semaglutide in this setting.
In this industry-funded trial, investigators randomized nearly 800 patients with type 2 diabetes and PAD with mild claudication to receive subcutaneous semaglutide or placebo (NCT04560998). At 1 year, the median improvement from baseline in maximum walking distance was 26.4 m farther in the …