The annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes 2021 will delve into individualized approaches in diabetes management, particularly with regard to tailoring drug therapy for type 2 diabetes and management of type 1 diabetes.
Sara Freeman/MDedge News
Dr. Stefano Del Prato
The virtual meeting, taking place Sept. 28 to Oct. 1 in Central European Summer Time, will feature results from TriMASTER (a three-way cross-over trial of precision medicine strategy of second-/third-line therapy in type 2 diabetes), new subgroup analyses from the GRADE (Glycemia Reduction Approaches in Diabetes: A Comparative Effectiveness) study, the final version of a consensus statement on type 1 diabetes management, and new data on the dual incretin agonist tirzepatide, as well as much more.
“I’m a strong believer in personalization. I don’t think the big blockbuster [drugs] will serve the entire community with diabetes. Even in type 1 diabetes, there’s evidence of heterogeneity. ... We need a better way to identify individual needs. I think that’s where we’re going. ... It’s one of the themes of the conference,” EASD President Stefano Del Prato, MD, professor of endocrinology at the University of Pisa (Italy), told this news organization.
He noted that EASD and the American Diabetes Association have recently teamed up with other organizations to form the Precision Medicine in Diabetes Initiative
As would be expected, the meeting will also feature numerous presentations on the COVID-19 pandemic, including studies looking at how people with COVID-19 and diabetes have fared; how the pandemic has affected diabetes care; and the still unclear impact of SARS-CoV-2 on pancreatic beta cells and whether, in some instances, it triggers new-onset diabetes.
New data from previously reported trials
There will be new data from several previously reported trials focusing on specific groups of patients with type 2 diabetes. One is the EMPEROR-Preserved study of empagliflozin (Jardiance) in individuals with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction. Initially presented in August 2021 at the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology, the new data will focus on patient subpopulations, efficacy endpoints, and safety in patients with and without diabetes. A companion study, EMPEROR-Reduced, in those with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction, was presented at the ESC Congress in August 2020.
New findings will also be presented from the DAPA-CKD study of dapagliflozin (Farxiga) in patients with chronic kidney disease. The study was stopped early in March 2020 because of overwhelming efficacy of the drug in preventing CKD. Now, the data will be analyzed in terms of metabolic, nephrology, and cardiology parameters.
And from FIDELIO-DKD and FIGARO-DKD, trials of the nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist finerenone (Kerendia), new data will also focus on a variety of subgroups of individuals with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease.
“Our goal is to cover most aspects of what’s happening in the type 2 diabetes field,” EASD Honorary Secretary Mikael Rydén, MD, PhD, professor and senior consultant in endocrinology at the Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, said in an interview.
Dr. Rydén, who chairs the meeting’s scientific program committee, added: “We can only focus on so much every year but we try to be active and changing from year to year. I’m convinced that a clinician or translational researcher will definitely have a number of very interesting symposia to follow and learn new things. If you follow all of these things, you will know a lot about what’s cooking in the diabetes world.”