Biphasic insulin aspart 30 treatment improves glycaemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes in a clinical practice setting: experience from the PRESENT study

The Physicians' Routine Evaluation of Safety and Efficacy of NovoMix® 30 Therapy (PRESENT) study aims to assess the safety and efficacy of biphasic insulin aspart 30 (BIAsp 30) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in routine clinical practice. This was a 6-month, prospective, multinational, multiethnic observational study involving 21 977 patients from 13 countries (India, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates). The patients were transferred to BIAsp 30 with or without oral antidiabetic drugs (OADs) from prior treatment with OAD (n = 8583), insulin (n = 5942), OAD + insulin (n = 4673) or diet (i.e. treatment naive) (n = 1707). One thousand and seventy-two patients had incomplete or no information on previous treatment. At 3 and 6 months, significant reductions from baseline were observed in the mean haemoglobin A₁c (HbA₁c) (-1.33 and -1.81%), fasting plasma glucose (-3.02 and -3.74 mmol/l) and postprandial plasma glucose (-4.76 and -5.82 mmol/l) (p < 0.001). A significantly greater proportion of patients achieved target HbA₁c of less than 7% at 3 months (15.3%) and 6 months (27.7%) compared with baseline (4.8%) (p < 0.001). Overall, the mean HbA₁c at 6 months was lowered in patients regardless of prior treatment: -2.15% (OAD), -1.45% (insulin), -1.47% (OAD + insulin) and -2.35% (treatment naive). In the overall cohort, the rate of total hypoglycaemia was reduced from 5.4 events per patient-year at baseline to 2.2 events per patient-year at study end (p < 0.001). Among prior treatment subgroups, the rates of total hypoglycaemia were reduced from 2.5 to 2.1 events per patient-year in the OAD group, from 9.6 to 2.2 events per patient-year in the insulin group and from 7.6 to 2.5 events per patient-year in the OAD + insulin group but were increased from 1.0 to 1.8 events per patient-year in the treatment-naive group (p < 0.001). There were 444 adverse drug reactions (ADRs), including 13 serious ADRs: lipodystrophy (three events), symptoms of generalized hypersensitivity (two events), acute painful neuropathy (one event), worsening of diabetic retinopathy (one event), oedema (one event) and unspecified ADRs (five events). The use of BIAsp 30 monotherapy or in combination with OADs in clinical practice was effective and safe in patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus.