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A treatment for type 2 diabetes has been found to reduce the risk of amputations, especially those associated with microvascular disease, a study has found.
The results of the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes (Field) study, presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Rome, show that over an average follow-up of five years, treatment with fenofibrate reduced the risk of non-traumatic amputation by 38%. Amputations related to microvascular disease were reduced by 47%.
Professor Anthony Keech, lead investigator of the Field study, said: “The effects of fenofibrate in reducing the risk of amputations in patients with established microvascular complications were particularly striking, and further support the important clinical benefits of fenofibrate on microvascular associated events in type 2 diabetes.”
Improvements in drug therapy have recently lead to a decline in cardiovascular-related deaths in patients with diabetes. As diabetes sufferers live longer, they are more likely to experience microvascular complications associated with diabetes. Add this to the increasing number of type 2 diabetes diagnoses among an ageing population, and doctors expect to face an increased number of cases of microvascular complications in the future.
Fenofibrate has been found to reduce the total cardiovascular risk in patients with type 2 diabetes and atherogenic dyslipidaemia (elevated triglycerides and low HDL-cholesterol).
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European Association for the Study of Diabetes
