Patients with type 2 diabetes (with and without cardiovascular disease) who are taking empagliflozin have half the risk of being hospitalised for heart failure compared with similar patients on sitagliptin, a US study shows.

In the first interim report from the real-world study EMPRISE, Harvard University researchers analysed three large patient databases and matched patients with type 2 diabetes who had recently started the sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor empagliflozin with those who had recently been prescribed the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor, sitagliptin.

More than 16,440 pairs were analysed. The average age was 59 years, 54% were male, 25% had records showing existing cardiovascular disease and 5% had a history of heart failure, the authors reported in Circulation.

The study found patients taking empagliflozin had a 50% reduction in the risk of hospitalisation for heart failure compared with those taking sitagliptin during a mean follow-up period of 5.3 months.