MedWire News: Weekly taspoglutide injections are associated with improved glycemic control and reduced body weight, and are generally well tolerated among Type 2 diabetes patients naive to antihyperglycemic therapy, shows research published in Diabetes Care.
"Notable findings included a mean reduction in HbA1c [glycated hemoglobin] of nearly 1.2% in patients with a mean baseline HbA1c of 7.7% treated with taspoglutide 20 mg," report Itamar Raz (Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel) and colleagues.
The results come from a 24-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study investigating the efficacy and safety of taspoglutide in 373 patients (aged 18 to 80 years) with diabetes uncontrolled with diet and exercise. Taspoglutide is a glucagon-like peptide-1 analog that is under investigation for treatment of Type 2 diabetes.
Raz and colleagues randomly assigned the patients to receive subcutaneous taspoglutide 10 mg weekly, taspoglutide 20 mg weekly (after 10 mg weekly for the initial 4 weeks), or placebo and assessed changes in HbA1c between baseline and 24 weeks.
The researchers report that there was a significantly greater reduction in mean HbA1c level in the taspoglutide 10 mg and 20 mg groups, of 1.01% and 1.18%, respectively, than there was in the placebo group, in which it fell by 0.09%.
Reductions in HbA1c in the taspoglutide 10 mg and 20 mg groups were significantly greater among patients with a baseline HbA1c of 8.0% or more, at 1.69% and 1.72%, respectively, than they were in those with a baseline HbA1c of less than 8.0%, at 0.69% and 0.93%, respectively.
The researchers also report that weight loss was significantly greater in the taspoglutide 20 mg group than in the placebo group (2.25 kg vs 1.23 kg).
Gastrointestinal adverse events and injection site reactions were more common with taspoglutide treatment than with placebo. The most commonly reported adverse events were vomiting and diarrhea, with vomiting reported in 4% of patients taking taspoglutide 10 mg and 2% of those taking taspoglutide 20 mg compared with none of those taking placebo. Similarly, no patients in the placebo group experienced nausea, compared with 1% and 5% of those in the taspoglutide 10 and 20 mg groups, respectively.
"Once-weekly taspoglutide given as a monotherapy was efficacious and generally well tolerated in patients with Type 2 diabetes naive to treatment with antidiabetic agents," conclude the authors.
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