The ADA and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) will release the first public draft of a new consensus report on managing hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes during a Tuesday morning symposium at the Scientific Sessions. It’s the third joint consensus statement on the management of hyperglycemia from the two groups. The initial statement was issued in 2012 and revised in 2015.
The new draft will be released during the two-hour session Management of Hyperglycemia in Type 2 Diabetes—Draft ADA/EASD Consensus Report 2018, which will begin at 8:00 a.m. in room W414.
“A major shift from prior frameworks is the need to consider the patient’s important comorbidities, particularly cardiovascular disease or high cardiovascular risk, in selecting glucose-lowering therapy,” said Deborah J. Wexler, MD, MSc, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Associate Clinical Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital Diabetes Unit, and Co-Clinical Director of the MGH Diabetes Center.
Dr. Wexler will discuss recommendations in the draft for personalized care based on patient characteristics and comorbidities. The session’s other presenters will discuss the rationale and importance of antihyperglycemic treatment, strategies for implementing antihyperglycemic treatment, lifestyle management and pharmacologic treatment, and key knowledge gaps. A question-and-answer session will close the symposium.
While the research to be discussed Tuesday isn’t necessarily new to most in the field, Dr. Wexler said there will be new recommendations about how to apply the evidence into practice.
Research for the new consensus report began in early 2017 and the writing group began its work in October 2017. The committee then made revisions in April 2018 based on internal discussions.
A second round of revisions will be made this summer based on comments and feedback from diabetes care providers, clinical researchers, patient groups, payers, regulators, and stakeholders. The final draft of the new statement will be released in October at the EASD annual meeting in Berlin, Germany.
John B. Buse, MD, PhD
“The thing that was impressive about the process is that multiple academic clinicians from the United States and Europe, from various disciplines, focused on obesity, diabetes, and primary care,” said John B. Buse, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Chief of Endocrinology, and Director of the Diabetes Center at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. “Each [clinician] provided perspectives that have enriched these recommendations.”
Dr. Buse co-chairs the ADA/EASD committee writing the new consensus statement along with Melanie J. Davies, CBE, MB, ChB, MD, FRCP, FRCGP, Professor of Diabetes Medicine at the University of Leicester and an Honorary Consultant Diabetologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust in England. The two will also co-chair Tuesday’s session.
Dr. Davies will discuss the process behind the consensus report update. The writing group—five experts from the United States and five from the European Union—summarized and incorporated the latest evidence into practical recommendations.
Melanie J. Davies, CBE, MB, ChB, MD, FRCP, FRCGP
“This new consensus report has a greater focus on lifestyle intervention, self-management support for patients, and also will make recommendations regarding the preferred choice of anti-hyperglycemic therapy and specific comorbidities particularly related to the new evidence on cardiovascular outcome trials,” Dr. Davies said.
Drs. Davies and Buse said Tuesday’s session offers the writing committee an opportunity for top-level feedback from the diverse audience that attends Scientific Sessions. Another 50 individuals from several organizations worldwide will provide additional feedback before the final release of the consensus report.
“We are crafting an intercalated opinion using the best evidence we can muster,” Dr. Buse said. “No doubt there will be substantial discussion and dispute of the recommendations, but we hope to air them well prior to producing the final document.”
