Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors and non-small cell lung cancer survival

Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are a relatively new class of antidiabetic drugs with demonstrated renal and cardiovascular disease benefit. This study evaluates the role of SGLT2 inhibitors on the survival of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. We used National Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked data. Twenty four thousand nine hundred fifteen NSCLC patients newly diagnosed between 2014 and 2017 with pre-exiting diabetes and aged 66 years or older were included and followed to the end of 2019. Information on SGLT2 inhibitors use was extracted from the Medicare Part D file. SGLT2 inhibitor use was associated with significantly reduced mortality risk after adjusting for potential confounders (HR = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.60–0.77) with stronger association for longer duration of use (HR = 0.54, 85% CI = 0.44–0.68). Further, we found that SGLT2 inhibitor use was associated with a significant reduced risk of mortality regardless of patients' demographic, tumour characteristics and cancer treatments. Our large SEER-Medicare linked data study indicates that SGLT2 inhibitors use was associated with improved overall survival of NSCLC patients with pre-existing diabetes. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings and elucidate the possible mechanisms behind the association.