Second-line Therapies for Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Moderate Cardiovascular Disease Risk

We will use the target trial framework for causal inference to conduct this observational retrospective cohort study that uses claims data of adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D) included in the de-identified datasets of OptumLabs Data Warehouse (OLDW) and Medicare fee-for-service. In Aim 1, we will emulate a target trial comparing the effectiveness of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA), sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i), dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (DPP-4i), and sulfonylureas (SU) in adults with T2D at moderate risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) with regard to major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), expanded MACE, microvascular complications, severe hypoglycemia, and other adverse events. In Aim 2, we will compare these four drug classes in the same population of adults with T2D included in OLDW and Medicare fee-for-service data with respect to a set of composite outcomes identified by a group of patients with T2D as being most important to them. Specifically, in Aim 2A, we will prospectively elicit patient preferences toward various treatment outcomes (e.g., hospitalization, kidney disease) using a participatory ranking exercise, then use these rankings to generate individually weighted composite outcomes. Then, in Aim 2B, we will estimate patient-centered treatment effects of four different second-line T2D medications that reflect the patient's value for each outcome. In Aim 3, we will compare different medications within each of the four therapeutic classes with respect to MACE.