Alkhalifah M, Afsar H, Shams A, Blaibel D, Chandrabalan V, Pappachan JM. Semaglutide for the management of diabesity: The real-world experience. World J Methodol 2024; 14(3): 91832 [PMID: 39310241 DOI: 10.5662/wjm.v14.i3.91832]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Joseph M Pappachan, MD, FRCP, Academic Editor, Consultant Endocrinologist, Professor, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Sharoe Green Lane, Preston PR2 9HT, United Kingdom. drpappachan@yahoo.co.in
Research Domain of This Article
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Cohort Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Methodol. Sep 20, 2024; 14(3): 91832 Published online Sep 20, 2024. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v14.i3.91832
Semaglutide for the management of diabesity: The real-world experience
Mohammed Alkhalifah, Hafsa Afsar, Anindya Shams, Dania Blaibel, Vishnu Chandrabalan, Joseph M Pappachan
Mohammed Alkhalifah, Hafsa Afsar, Anindya Shams, Dania Blaibel, Joseph M Pappachan, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Preston PR2 9HT, United Kingdom
Mohammed Alkhalifah, Department of Family Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Riyadh 11211, Saudi Arabia
Vishnu Chandrabalan, Department of Data Science, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Preston PR2 9HT, United Kingdom
Joseph M Pappachan, Faculty of Science, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6BH, United Kingdom
Joseph M Pappachan, Faculty of Biology, Medicine & Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Alkhalifah M, Afsar H and Shyams A collected the clinical data. Alkhalifah M, Shyams A and Blaibel D performed literature search, and interpretation of relevant data following statistical analysis; Alkhalifah M, Blaibel D, and Chandrabalan V contributed to the work with additional literature review and revision of the article critically for important intellectual content; Chandrabalan V also procured the patient data from the hospital electronic records; Pappachan JM contributed to the conceptual design of the paper and critically supervised the whole drafting, literature review, revision and modifications of the paper including figure construction and is the final author; All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study-related audit was approved by the Institutional Audit Department.
Informed consent statement: This study is only a retrospective cohort study based on electronic case note review and therefore, patient consent is not necessary as per the standard publishing guidelines.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.
Data sharing statement: Authors are happy to share the data on request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Joseph M Pappachan, MD, FRCP, Academic Editor, Consultant Endocrinologist, Professor, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Sharoe Green Lane, Preston PR2 9HT, United Kingdom. drpappachan@yahoo.co.in
Received: January 6, 2024 Revised: January 29, 2024 Accepted: March 1, 2024 Published online: September 20, 2024 Processing time: 170 Days and 19.1 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Diabesity, diabetes as a consequence of obesity, is a huge healthcare challenge across the globe and judicious use of antidiabetic medications like semaglutide is important for the optimal management as shown in randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Research motivation
Real-world data on management of diabesity with semaglutide are also crucial for appropriate clinical practice decision making.
Research objectives
We aimed to study the real-world benefits and side effect profile of using semaglutide to manage patients with diabesity.
Research methods
In a retrospective study, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of semaglutide for managing patients with diabesity between January 2019 to May 2023 in a large academic hospital in the United Kingdom. With the relevant demographic information, we captured patients’ data from the electronic case records on improvement of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), body weight reduction, and insulin dose adjustments at 6 and 12 months, as well as at the latest follow up period.
Research results
Among 106 patients (56 males) with T2DM with a mean age and diabetes duration 60.8 ± 11.2 years, 12.4 ± 7.2 years respectively treated with semaglutide for a mean 2.6 ± 1.1 years, significant improvements in diabesity outcomes such as a mean weight reduction of 12.3% and HbA1c reduction of 13.7% from baseline at the latest follow-up period were observed. A mean insulin dose reduction of 19.5% from baseline was also observed at the latest follow-up as an additional benefit of semaglutide treatment. Mild gastrointestinal side effects like bloating and nausea, improving with prolonged use of semaglutide were also observed in this study.
Research conclusions
As RCTs are performed in strictly controlled research environments, the results may not always reflect patient outcomes of real-world clinical practice settings. Reviews of large-scale cohort data from real-world settings as in our study would inform better clinical practice decision making to improve the care of patients with diabesity.
Research perspectives
Significant improvements in diabesity outcomes such as reductions in body weight, HbA1c, and insulin doses were observed with semaglutide treatment, without major adverse effects in a real-world clinical practice setting.
