There are medications that when they appear extend the therapeutic arsenal available to health professionals and then there are others that revolutionize it.This was the case of GLP-1 receiver agonists when they emerged in the pharmaceutical market.However, one of them has taken a step further and threatens to change the paradigm of this disease.
This is Liraglutida (Victaza), by Novo Nordisk, a treatment that in clinical trials has achieved a reduction in cardiovascular mortality of 22 percent in patients with diabetes, as indicated by the Leader study.“Not only does it decrease complications with blood glucose, but it lowers weight, decreases mycardio infarctions, descends difficulties by stent…
Until its development, there was no drug that reduced in this way and within a short term the mortality from cardiovascular damage, ”said Almudena Castro, responsible for the Diabetes Group of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC).
In fact, despite the fact that this drug is only funded for obese diabetic patients and whose disease is not controlled, "SEC's recommendation is to give it in the front line in all types of patients for secondary prevention," he said.He has also assured that all kinds of diabetes patients could benefit from this drug, including those who control their pathology and are thin."This should be reviewed by scientific societies and the Ministry of Health."
"We consider it useful in any step of the treatment of diabetes," said Esteban Jódar, head of endocrinology and nutrition of the Hospitals Quirón Health Pozuelo, Rúber Juan Bravo and San José, who remembers that the sick with this pathology havethe double cardiovascular risk as a person without it.He also considers that, in order to treat mortality from heart problems, "I would not have to work on those who do not have metabolic syndrome."
underutilization
These issues have been addressed during a meeting with the press about the decrease in cardiovascular liraglutide risk (a benefit whose inclusion in technical file was approved in June 2017), which has also demonstrated benefit in diabetic patients in renal disease."We are underutilizing these drugs," said Jódar, referring to economic reasons.
However, Marta Carrera, director of Institutional Relations of Novo Nordisk, has assured that they have not found “reluctance for lirglutida.It is very well received by both clinicians and by payers and managers, such as the case of Catalonia, where it is recommended above other ANologists of the LPG-1 for patients with diabetes with cardiovascular risk. ”