REPORTING FROM ENDO 2018

CHICAGO (FRONTLINE MEDICAL NEWS) Empagliflozin, an oral sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT-2), reduced liver fat by 5% and improved ALT in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.

As insulin resistance is the mechanism for NAFLD development, this new addition to the list of drugs on offer to patients with diabetes could help decrease the chance of developing metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease.

“SGLT-2 inhibitors are newer antidiabetic agents that reduce blood glucose by promoting urinary glucose excretion,” said presenter Mohammad Shafi Kuchay, MD, DM, an endocrinologist at Medanta The Medicity, Gurugram, India. “NAFLD, which also increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, often responds to strategies that improve hyperglycemia.”

Dr. Kuchay and fellow investigators conducted a small, 20-week randomized controlled trial of 42 patients with type 2 diabetes and NAFLD.

Patients in the test group were mostly male and on average 50 years old, with baseline AST, ALT, and gamma-glutamyltransferase scores of 44.6 U/L, 64.3 U/L, and 65.8 U/L, respectively. Those randomized to the control group had similar characteristics.

After adding 10 mg of empagliflozin to their diabetes regimen, liver fat density in test patients decreased from 16.2% to 11.3% (P less than or equal to .0001). The drop stands in sharp contrast to the control group, which decreased from 16.4% to 15.5% (P = .054). Measurement of liver fat density was made by MRI-derived proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF). This method has higher sensitivity for detecting changes in liver fat, compared with histology, explained Dr. Kuchay.

When broken down by individual liver fat, 25% of patients in the control group increased in liver fat, 50% had no significant change, and 25% decreased in liver fat, according to Dr. Kuchay.

In comparison, 77% of patients in the empagliflozin group had a decrease in liver fat, 23% had no change, and no patients saw an increase in liver fat.

When comparing levels of hemoglobin A1c between the two groups, both had a similarly significant reduction of around 2%, which Dr. Kuchay attributes to deliberate intervention by investigators.

Further studies will need to be conducted regarding the long-term effects of this treatment; however, using SGLT-2 to reduce liver fat could be a boon to preventing more serious liver diseases, concluded Dr. Kuchay.

“There are studies in which liver fat reduction led to improvement in inflammation and fibrosis,” said Dr. Kuchay in response to a question from the audience. “Because liver fat accumulation is the first inhibitor in the pathogenesis of more severe forms of liver disease, reducing liver fat should help improve patient outcomes.”

Dr. Kuchay reported no relevant financial disclosures.

ezimmerman@mdedge.com

Source: M. Kuchay et al. ENDO 2018, Abstract OR27-2 .

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