TOPLINE:

In patients with cardiovascular disease and overweight or obesity without diabetes, treatment with semaglutide was associated with an 11% reduced risk for a first hospitalization and a reduced number of days in the hospital.

METHODOLOGY:

• In this analysis of the SELECT randomized trial, researchers investigated whether semaglutide treatment reduced hospitalizations in adults with overweight or obesity and cardiovascular disease.
• They included 17,604 patients across 804 sites globally. They were 45 years or older with established cardiovascular disease, a BMI of 27 or higher, and no diabetes. The median age of the patients was 61 years, and 27.7% were women.
• Patients were randomly assigned to receive once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide, with dose escalation to 2.4 mg, or a placebo.
• Over a median follow-up of 41.8 months, researchers tracked total hospital admissions and days in hospital, including first and recurrent events, serious adverse events, and elective stays.

TAKEAWAY:

• Semaglutide treatment was associated with an 11% reduced risk for a first hospital admission for any cause (P < .001), a 12% reduced risk for a first admission recorded as a serious adverse event (P < .001), and a 14% reduced risk for a first elective admission (P = .01).
• Patients treated with semaglutide had fewer total hospitalizations than those on placebo (18.3 vs 20.4 per 100 patient-years; mean ratio, 0.90; P < .001) and spent fewer days in the hospital (157.2 vs 176.2 days per 100 patient-years; rate ratio, 0.89; P = .01).
• The reduced risk for hospitalizations with semaglutide was consistent across subgroups, including different subgroups based on BMI, age, or sex, with no significant heterogeneity.
• Over 3 years, the absolute risk for first hospitalization was reduced by 3.2% with semaglutide treatment.

IN PRACTICE:

“When combined with the favorable effects of semaglutide on MACE [major adverse cardiovascular events], heart failure, and other important cardiometabolic risk factors (eg, reduced progression to diabetes and increased regression to normoglycemia, improved kidney outcomes, and weight loss), these results highlight the importance of targeting the GLP-1 receptor with semaglutide in patients at high CV [cardiovascular] risk in the setting of adiposity,” the researchers concluded.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Stephen J. Nicholls, MD, of Monash Victorian Heart Institute and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. It was published online on December 23 in JAMA Cardiology.

LIMITATIONS:

Data were retrieved from investigator reports and were not centrally reviewed. The trial happened during the pandemic, which may have affected admissions. It remained unclear whether the results applied to other incretin drugs or weight-loss methods.

DISCLOSURES:

The study received funding from Novo Nordisk A/S. One author reported receiving consulting fees paid to his institution from Novo Nordisk and grants paid to his institution from multiple pharmaceutical companies including Amgen, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly. Additional disclosures are noted in the original article. Several other authors reported receiving personal fees, honoraria, holding stock options, and having other financial ties with multiple such companies.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.