Insulin and its secretagogues are essential for some patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) to maintain good glycemic control (GC), but severe hypoglycemia (SH) is a concern. This network meta-analysis aimed to find optimal glucose-lowering drug treatment regimens in terms of GC and SH in T2D patients. MEDLINE and EMBASE were used to identify trials that compared two or more treatments including insulins and/or sulfonylurea or glinides and that examined both GC and SH. Treatment hierarchy was expressed as the surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) probabilities. We identified 137 eligible trials comprising 42 treatments. The use of insulins and non-insulin glucose-lowering agents except for sulfonylurea or glinide had a higher SUCRA than insulins only for hemoglobin A1c (A1C) (p = 0.01) changes and achievement of A1C < 7.0% (p = 0.02) or A1C ≤ 6.5% (p = 0.002). The use of sulfonylurea or glinide and other non-insulin glucose-lowering agents resulted in a lower SUCRA for SH than insulins only when trials were analyzed for A1C change (p = 0.06) and achievement of A1C < 7.0% (p = 0.004) or A1C ≤ 6.5% (p = 0.004). Cluster analysis indicated that premixed insulin plus glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (Mix-ins + GLP1) belonged to the high-efficacy category for GC and glinide plus thiazolidinedione (glinide + TZD) belonged to the relatively high-efficacy category for GC among several high-safety categories regarding SH. In T2D patients, clinicians should consider appropriate combinations of non-insulin glucose-lowering agents (especially glinide + TZD) for reducing SH risk before switching to insulin therapies. If switching, they should be willing to add non-insulin glucose-lowering agents (especially, Mix-ins + GLP1) to insulins to further improve GC.
Keywords: Network meta-analysis; cluster analysis; glycemic control; glycemic target; insulin; insulin secretagogues; severe hypoglycemia; type 2 diabetes.