Comparative effectiveness of Empagliflozin in reducing the burden of recurrent cardiovascular hospitalizations among older adults with diabetes in routine clinical care

The effect of sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) on the total (first and recurrent) burden of cardiovascular (CV) hospitalizations, including hospitalization for heart failure, myocardial infarction, and stroke, is poorly understood.To assess the effect of empagliflozin, an SGLT2i, on total CV hospitalizations among older adults with T2D.Using data from Medicare fee-for-service (08/2014-09/2017), we identified 1:1 propensity score-matched cohorts of patients with T2D initiating empagliflozin versus sitagliptin or empagliflozin versus glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA), balancing >140 baseline covariates. We compared the risk of first and recurrent hospitalizations with any CV condition as the primary discharge diagnosis (ICD-9: 390-459; ICD-10: I00-I99), hospitalizations for heart failure (HHF), and myocardial infarctions (MI) or stroke. We estimated treatment effects based on the Ghosh-Lin semiparametric model for recurrent events as primary and joint frailty model as secondary analysis.We included 11,429 matched-pairs of empagliflozin and sitagliptin initiators and 17,502 matched-pairs of empagliflozin and GLP1-RA initiators with an average age of 72 years. Empagliflozin was associated with a reduced risk of total CV hospitalizations (0.80 [0.69-0.93] vs sitagliptin; 0.88 [0.77-1.00] vs GLP-1RA) and total HHF (0.70 [0.51-0.98] vs sitagliptin; 0.76 [0.56-1.03] vs GLP1-RA) over a mean follow up of 6.3 months. No differences between treatments were observed for MI or stroke. Results were consistent for joint frailty models.Empagliflozin, compared to sitagliptin or to a lesser extent GLP1-RA, was associated with a reduction in the burden of total CV hospitalizations and HHF in older patients with T2D.