Real-life experience of patients starting insulin degludec. A multicenter analysis of 1064 subjects from the German/Austrian DPV registry

Abstract Background The long-acting insulin analogue degludec is a therapeutic option for patients with type 1 (T1D) or type 2 diabetes (T2D). Aim of this analysis was to investigate differences in clinical characteristics of patients before and after initiating degludec use in a cohort of German/Austrian patients. Methods 1064 subjects with T1D/T2D and documented degludec use from the Diabetes-Patient-Follow-Up (DPV) registry were included. The follow-up cohort (n = 421) comprised patients with available data before and 3–15 months after switching to degludec. A t-test for paired values was implemented to compare rates of severe hypoglycaemia, and mean values for HbA 1C , BMI, basal insulin dose/kg bodyweight/day, and the number of basal insulin injections/day before and after switching to degludec Results were stratified by type of diabetes. In T1D, subgroup analyses were conducted (age, sex, basal insulin used before switching). P  Findings In T1D (n = 360), basal insulin dose (0.43 ± 0.17 to 0.38 ± 0.13 IU) and the number of basal injections/day (1.7 ± 0.6 to 1.1 ± 0.3) decreased whereas BMI increased from 23.2 ± 4.8 to 24.0 ± 5.0 kg/m 2 (all p  1C -values. Findings were comparable for subgroups. In T2D (n = 61), basal insulin dose (0.41 ± 0.23 to 0.38 ± 0.21; p = 0.1730) and the number of basal injections/day (1.3 ± 0.4 to 1.1 ± 0.3; p = 0.0097) decreased after switching to degludec. HbA 1C improved from 7.9 ± 1.6 to 7.1 ± 1.5% (p  Conclusions The DPV registry provides data from real-life diabetes care. Our analysis predominantly confirmed results from clinical trials and provides additional information complementing the clinical study program of degludec.