Matching Patients to their Therapies Betters Personalized Diabetes Care

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Silvio Inzucchi, MD, professor, Yale University School of Medicine; sectional chief of endocrinology, and medical director of Yale Diabetes Center, believes that the landscape for diabetes is constantly changing in terms of managing glucose-lowering medications.

As more treatment options materialize for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) that encourage an individualized treatment plan, Dr Inzucchi sees this as a challenge—combining these medications in the most effective way for the patient. He suggests that one of the greatest challenges in T2DM therapy is sorting through the noise created by clinical trials regarding the risk factors associated with differing medications.

“There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to type 2 diabetes,” Dr Inzucchi said.

Through his work, Dr Inzucchi outlines a clinician’s thought process when prescribing glucose-lowering medications as well as the approach to managing hyperglycemia by measuring the patient and disease on varying factor scales. These factors include: the risks potentially associated with hyperglycemia and other drug adverse effects, disease duration, life expectancy, important comorbidities, established vascular complications, patient attitude, expected treatment efforts, and resources and support systems.

“Just like it’s important to individualize the treatment target in a patient, it’s critically important to try to match the drug to the patient in terms of not only pathophysiology and efficacy, but also side-effect profiles,” Dr Inzucchi said.