Canagliflozin reduces oral loop diuretic intensification in patients with type 2 diabetes: A participant-level pooled analysis of the CANVAS and CREDENCE trials

Aims: The sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor canagliflozin reduces the risk of heart failure (HF) hospitalization or cardiovascular death and chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression among patients with type 2 diabetes at high cardiovascular risk or with CKD. Patients with type 2 diabetes commonly have coexisting HF or CKD that require treatment with loop diuretics; however, the prognostic implications of oral loop diuretic intensification are not well characterized.

Methods and results: In this participant-level pooled analysis of the CREDENCE and CANVAS trials (not including CANVAS-R), 1454/8731 (16.7%) patients were treated with loop diuretics at baseline. Over a median on-treatment follow-up of 2.2 years, 1264 patients (14.5%) required oral loop diuretic intensification, of whom 981 (77.6%) required initiation of oral loop diuretics and 283 (22.4%) required oral loop diuretic dose increase. Patients requiring oral loop diuretic intensification experienced rates of subsequent HF hospitalization, CKD progression and mortality that were 29.5-, 5.0-, and 3.5-fold higher, respectively, than those not requiring oral loop diuretic intensification. Treatment with canagliflozin reduced the need for oral loop diuretic intensification by 41% (hazard ratio [HR] 0.59; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.53–0.66) including both new diuretic initiation (HR 0.65; 95% CI 0.57–0.74) and diuretic dose increase (HR 0.42; 95% CI 0.33–0.54). Inclusion of oral diuretic intensification in an expanded HF composite outcome inclusive of cardiovascular death and HF hospitalization approximately double the number of events, with similar observed treatment effect (HR 0.64; 95% CI 0.58–0.70).

Conclusion: Among high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes, new oral loop diuretic intensification was frequent and portended adverse prognostic significance. Treatment with canagliflozin significantly reduced the need for loop diuretic intensification.

Clinical Trial Registration: CANVAS (Canagliflozin Cardiovascular Assessment Study), ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01032629; CREDENCE (Canagliflozin and Renal Events in Diabetes with Established Nephropathy Clinical Evaluation), ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02065791.