What is known and objectives: In Korea, the side effects of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) have not been clearly reported, aside from voluntary reporting. We aimed to develop detection algorithms for SGLT2i-related genital tract infections (GTIs) and urinary tract infections (UTIs) via a common data model (CDM), an electronic medical record-based database for supporting multi-hospital clinical research. We estimated the occurrence of GTIs and UTIs and-by assessing the status of each step of the algorithm-we also aimed to determine how clinicians responded to the SGLT2i-related GTIs and UTIs.
Methods: We targeted all patients who were prescribed SGLT2i at Catholic University Seoul St. Mary's Hospital and Hallym University Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital from January 2014 to August 2018. We developed algorithms for detection of SGLT2i-related GTIs or UTIs that divided patients into "most likely," "possibly" or "less likely" categories of GTIs or UTIs. The numbers of patients at each step were extracted.
Results and discussion: A total of 4253 patients received their first prescription of SGLT2i. According to the algorithm used in this study, the proportions of "most likely GTI" and "possibly GTI" were 0.9% (37 out of 4253) and 19.4% (826 out of 4253 patients), respectively. Similarly, the proportions of "most likely UTI" and "possibly UTI" were 0.9% (38 out of 4253) and 20.2% (858 out of 4253 patients), respectively. Compared to the various existing prospective studies, both GTIs and UTIs showed lower occurrence among patients who met "most likely" criteria and higher occurrence among those who met "possibly" criteria. When a GTI or UTI occurred or was suspected, the overall rate of discontinuing SGLT2i was 51.8% (1721 out of 3323). Despite a confirmed or suspected GTI and an UTI, 62.8% (1460 out of 2323) and 14.2% (142 out of 1000) of patients continued to take SGLT2i, respectively. The discontinuation rate for suspected GTIs was significantly lower than that for suspected UTIs (37.2% vs. 85.8%, p < 0.001).
What is new and conclusion: In this study, although the GTIs appeared to have a similar occurrence as UTIs, however, the discontinuation rate of SGLT2i for suspected GTIs was relatively lower. Our study is novel in that we identified how the physicians approached SGLT2i-related GTIs or UTIs at each step in a real-world clinical practice setting. Although we could estimate SGLT2i-related GTIs and UTIs via CDM, we were limited in our ability to accurately detect mild drug side effects via CDM, which lacked data for operational definition.
Keywords: diabetes mellitus; genital tract infection; side effects; sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors; urinary tract infection.
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.