COIOS
Healthcare today Item confirms peer-reviewed

A claims-wide screen of SGLT2 inhibitors in kidney disease finds no new harms

A scan of all diagnosis codes in 31,246 matched pairs of US patients with type 2 diabetes and stage III to IV chronic kidney disease found only the already-known genital infection signal for SGLT2 inhibitors against GLP-1 receptor agonists, with nothing from inpatient or emergency codes.

Two US claims databases were used to compare new users of SGLT2 inhibitors with new users of GLP-1 receptor agonists among adults with type 2 diabetes and stage III to IV chronic kidney disease, a group thinly represented in the licensing trials. A hierarchical scan across all outpatient, inpatient and emergency diagnoses in 22,328 Medicare and 8,918 commercial matched pairs detected genital infections in both sexes and nothing else. No signal emerged from inpatient or emergency department codes.

Why it is interesting: An untargeted screen of the whole diagnosis tree is a stronger test of a drug class after launch than prespecified endpoints, in the comorbid patients trials exclude.

Source
American Journal of Kidney Diseases, 21 September 2026
DOI
10.1053/j.ajkd.2026.06.013
Type
Peer-reviewed article
Design
New-user active-comparator cohort with 1:1 propensity matching and tree-based scan statistic; 22,328 matched pairs (Medicare, 2016-2020) and 8,918 (MarketScan, 2016-2022)
Verdict
Confirms prior evidence
Driver
Cardiovascular disease
Driver
New medicines