New records persisted to indicate clinical advantages from steady glucose monitoring (CGM) in other folks with form 2 diabetes, including other folks who create not employ insulin.
Use of CGM is now in reality appropriate approved of care for other folks with form 1 diabetes. Use in form 2 diabetes is increasing among other folks who employ insulin, for whom the gadgets are lined by Medicare and increasingly extra by other payers. But, total employ in form 2 diabetes remains low.
New records from a couple of be taught supplied at the Evolved Technologies & Treatments for Diabetes (ATTD) assembly held in Florence, Italy, on March 6-9, 2024, demonstrated improved glycemic absorb an eye on and other cardiometabolic measures, reduced healthcare resource utilization, and reduced mortality among other folks with form 2 diabetes who employ insulin. Some records moreover showed the same improvements among those not the employ of insulin.
“All of the giant datasets are exhibiting the same signal. Hemoglobin A1c goes down, healthcare resource utilization goes down, and it be not relevant which therapy is veteran. CGM appears to be like to be to be efficient for all sufferers with diabetes,” ATTD Session Speaker Irl B. Hirsch, MD, professor of remedy at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, instructed Medscape Scientific Information.
Another presenter, Peter D. Reaven, MD, professor of clinical remedy, The University of Arizona Faculty of Medication – Tucson, instructed Medscape Scientific Information, “Use of CGM can also honest have impacts on standard of living behaviors, main to improved dietary and converse patterns. These form of standard of living adjustments would in most cases be precious in form 2 diabetes on all therapy regimens.”
Then again, Hirsch talked about, “Repayment is somewhat patchy. The sufferers I’m most allowing for are those in the [US] states that create not have Medicaid expansion. There are giant numbers of oldsters who can also have the profit of CGM, each and every form 1 and form 2, who create not have entry. Where I are living, as a rule of thumb there is supreme-making an strive but not supreme entry for those taking insulin and miserable coverage for those not requiring insulin.”
Asked whether he believes CGM will modified into approved of care in treating form 2 diabetes, Hirsch spoke back, “If the stamp comes down, yes, but we’re going to not be there yet.”
What’s Slack the Improvements?
William H. Polonsky, PhD, a clinical psychologist who leads the Behavioral Diabetes Institute in San Diego, California, supplied qualitative records demonstrating what’s at the support of the improvements with CGM in other folks with form 2 diabetes.
His crew performed in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 34 adults with form 2 diabetes who had been the employ of CGM for 3-6 months. All had bought the gadgets free by means of a neighborhood program but hadn’t bought steering as to the ideal technique to employ the glucose information the gadgets present. Half had been the employ of insulin, and the rest weren’t.
At 3 months, A1c dropped from 9.2% to 7.2% “without different steering or reinforce,” Polonsky commented.
Several themes emerged from the interviews. One, Polonsky called “Making the Invisible Considered.” In a single example, a affected person talked about “Before CGM, I used to be acceptable guessing. I had somewhat of a thought, but I didn’t the truth is know for particular what diversified meals did…CGM has brought so grand insight into what diversified meals terminate to my system.”
A 2d theme used to be “efficient decision-making is now possible.” This used to be exemplified by a affected person who talked about “I’ve realized that once I expend one thing and it goes high, that’s one thing I ought to not expend. If I expend greens, it stays flat. Same with protein. Infrequently, the self-discipline is carbs or straight sugary meals. The dietician tried to announce me this before. It would plug in a single ear and out the other. I didn’t imagine her. I imagine her now!”
And the third theme, “Enhanced Self-Efficacy,” led one participant to declare “I’m extra as much as tempo of my diabetes now with the CGM. Before, diabetes used to be controlling me, and it used to be the truth is out of absorb an eye on. Now that I’m support as much as tempo, I possess mentally severely higher.”
Polonsky popular, “You procure these very fixed themes across our 34 contributors.”
The contributors took actions per the CGM records. All 34 (100%) reported making dietary adjustments per CGM readings, 32% reported changing their physical activity, and 28.5% modified their remedy employ.
“This gape highlights CGM’s capacity to handbook to meaningful alternate in the form 2 diabetes population,” Polonsky concluded.
Healthcare Resource Use Amongst Medicaid Beneficiaries Drops With CGM
Hirsch supplied records from be taught funded by Abbott Diabetes Care comparing healthcare resource utilization of Medicaid beneficiaries 6 months sooner than CGM employ with that considered 6 months after CGM initiation, in two separate claims records analyses. On March 7, 2024, he supplied records for 9574 sufferers with form 2 diabetes the employ of handiest basal insulin, followed on March 9, 2024, by an evaluation of 35,367 the employ of a couple of day-to-day injections (MDIs).
In the basal insulin crew, the series of inpatient hospitalizations dropped by 18%, from 0.37 pre-CGM to 0.31 put up-CGM; emergency department (ED) visits by 12%, from 0.95 to 0.84; and outpatient visits by 6%, from 9.11 to eight.6. All those variations had been statistically fundamental at P <.001.
Then again, among those with low utilization (one to two vs ≥ three visits) pre-CGM, outpatient visits increased by 123%, from 1.6 to three.57, doubtless because seeing the CGM numbers led them to search extra help, and/or their therapies had modified, requiring extra visits for adjustments, Hirsch hypothesized.
Equally, in the MDI cohort, the series of hospitalizations, ED visits, and outpatient visits pre-and put up-CGM dropped by 28%, 17%, and 7%, respectively, again all fundamental at P <.001. And again, the initial low utilizers had extra outpatient visits with CGM, 112% (P <.001), but the high utilizer crew showed a crop worth.
“This means that CGM can also honest lead to extra atmosphere pleasant employ of healthcare resources. The reductions in hospitalizations and emergency department visits can also honest translate into total worth financial savings. We want to total those analyses,” Hirsch concluded.
Mortality Bargain, Other Advantages Considered in Insulin-Treated
Reaven, who’s moreover a workforce endocrinologist at the Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Scientific Center, Phoenix, Arizona, supplied the first-ever CGM mortality records, the employ of VA medical records from 2015 to 2020. In the VA, CGM is roofed for veterans who employ a couple of day-to-day insulin injections or a pump.
The gape sample with form 2 diabetes incorporated propensity-matched groups of 15,706 CGM customers and 25,180 nonusers. The mortality hazard ratio used to be 0.86, fundamental at P <.001. A corresponding evaluation of veterans with form 1 diabetes showed an wonderful higher chance crop worth, 0.43 (P <.001). The mortality reductions remained “tough” across several diversified sensitivity analyses, Reaven popular.
A smaller subset evaluation showed that the mortality reductions in form 2 diabetes with CGM had been extra commonly for nonatherosclerotic than atherosclerotic causes.
The quantity significant to handle over 18 months to terminate one death used to be 77 for the form 2 crew. By comparison, that quantity for statins ranges from 50 to 130 over 5 years, he identified.
Longer-interval of time records of CGM employ in insulin-handled form 2 sufferers had been supplied by Nanna Lind, a PhD pupil at the Steno Diabetes Center in Copenhagen. In the 12-month, parallel, birth stamp, randomized clinical trial, 40 adults with form 2 diabetes and A1c of seven.5% (58 mmol/mol) or higher had been randomized to CGM and another 36 to fingerstick blood glucose monitoring (controls). The majority (83%) had been on basal insulin handiest and the rest on MDI.
The major , distinction in alternate in time in vary at 365 days as measured by 10-day blinded CGM, used to be 15.2% higher with CGM (P=.006). Well-known reductions with CGM compared with blood glucose monitoring moreover occurred in A1c (−9.4 mmol/mol; P=.002), total day-to-day insulin dose (−10.6 gadgets/d; P=.026), physique mass index (−1.1 kg/m2; P=.006), and physique weight (−3.3 kg; P=.004).
Sufferers in the CGM crew moreover reported higher diabetes-linked properly being, properly-being, and pleasure. “The findings reinforce the employ of CGM in the insulin-handled subgroup of form 2 diabetes,” Lind concluded.
Advantages Considered in Form 2 Diabetes, With or Without Insulin
Richard M. Bergenstal, MD, executive director of the World Diabetes Center of HealthPartners Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota, supplied findings from Dexcom’s “Clarity” app cloud for 6641 other folks with self-identified form 2 diabetes not handled with insulin, the employ of the Dexcom G6, and with baseline time in vary of 70% or below.
By 6 months, their indicate glucose phases dropped from 201.7 mg/dL to 182.7 mg/dL (P <.001), their glucose administration indicator (an approximation of A1c per CGM records) from 8.1% to 7.7% (P <.001), and time in vary 70-180 mg/dL from 41.05 to 56.5% (P <.001). The advantages had been equally the same in each and every younger and older age groups, Bergenstal talked about.
Extra proper-world records had been supplied by Stefanie Lanzinger, PhD, of the German Center for Diabetes Compare, Ulm University, Germany. The provide used to be the prospective Diabetes Doable Discover-up Registry, which contains 521 taking part centers in Germany and Austria.
Amongst 2516 adults with form 2 diabetes who veteran CGM and for whom baseline and put together-up information used to be out there, 15% had been the employ of basal insulin by myself, 37% basal-bolus, and 48% weren’t the employ of insulin.
From baseline to 6 months after CGM initiation, A1c dropped from 6.9% to 6.8% among those not the employ of insulin (P <.001), from 7.2% to 6.8% among those on basal insulin handiest (P <.001), and from 7.5% to 7.3% (P <.001) for the basal-bolus crew.
Other improvements had been fundamental handiest in the noninsulin handled crew, including reductions in physique mass index (P <.001), systolic blood stress (P <.001), and total ldl cholesterol (P=.002).
“CGM is doubtless to be instructed to other folks with form 2 diabetes no topic their therapy, but further be taught are significant from other proper-world settings to reinforce these outcomes,” Lanzinger concluded.
Hirsh bought be taught reinforce from Dexcom, Tandem, and Mannkind and does consulting for Abbott, Roche Hager, and Vertex. Reaven bought be taught reinforce from Dexcom and the Veterans Affairs Department of Compare and Construction. Lind bought lecture costs from Novo Nordisk and Boehringer Ingelheim, and the Steno2Tech gape she reported bought CGM equipment from Dexcom. Lanzinger had no disclosures. Polonsky is a consultant for Dexcom, Abbott Diabetes, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, Bigfoot, Insulet, Vertex, and Embecta and bought be taught reinforce from Dexcom and Abbott.
Miriam E. Tucker is a freelance journalist essentially based fully fully in the Washington, DC, reveal. She is a novel contributor to Medscape Scientific Information, with other work acting in the Washington Post, NPR’s Shots weblog, and Diatribe. She is on X: @MiriamETucker.