Routine clinical use of liraglutide 3 mg for the treatment of obesity: Outcomes in non‐surgical and bariatric surgery patients

Abstract

thus be given the opportunity to show if they are "responders" at 16 weeks and "super responders" at 52 weeks; the medication would only be continued long-term in those who may benefit most. Future studies with liraglutide 3 mg and other obesity medications will have to assess long-term cost-effectiveness and the budgetary impact of using these medications to address not only body weight loss, but also the effects upon various obesity-related comorbidities. 15The strengths of our data include the large number of patients, the detailed documentation of follow-up, and the routine clinical practice setting from a single centre. Thus, the findings are probably generalizable to other routine care clinics. The limitations include the dependence on medical records to ascertain compliance, and not accounting for possible gaps in treatment. A further limitation is the short duration of treatment in our study of 4 to 8 months compared with 1 to 3 years in the SCALE study. 6In conclusion, we show that liraglutide 3 mg combined with lifestyle advice is effective in reducing body weight in patients from Arab descent attending routine clinical care. The outcomes achieved as regards the amount of weight lost at 3 months and the percentage of patients achieving 5% weight loss were similar to published randomized controlled trials. Our results show that the treatment is also effective and safe in postbariatric surgery patients. This suggests that data from randomized controlled trials using liraglutide 3 mg can be used to inform clinical practice. The question that now needs to be answered is whether the use of this drug is cost-effective for most patients with obesity, or whether cost-effectiveness will only reach the desired level in a sub-cohort of patients, such as those with obesity and prediabetes.

Weight loss and persistence with liraglutide 3.0 mg by obesity class in the real‐world effectiveness study in Canada

“…14 Two further real-world studies have reported similar outcomes with liraglutide 3.0 mg. In the United Arab Emirates, median weight loss in 787 patients after ≥16-week treatment was 6.4% (6.0 kg), 15 and in Spain, mean weight loss in 100 patients over a median followup of 6.9 months was 7.7 kg 16 ; however, these studies did not assess outcomes by obesity class.…”

The Mitigating Effect of Phentermine and Topiramate on Weight Regain After Roux‐en‐Y Gastric Bypass Surgery

“…There are few prospective trials investigating “rescue” pharmacotherapy with AOMs following bariatric surgery, with only six published to date with small numbers of patients (37‐43). One of the studies used an AOM which has since been withdrawn from the market, fenfluramine (40), and two other trials used AOMs after the adjustable laparoscopic gastric band, which is rarely used today (41,42).…”

Double‐blinded, randomized, and controlled study on the effects of canagliflozin after bariatric surgery: A pilot study

“…The marked weight loss results achieved by the participants in the liraglutide study were likely confounded by diet, as the participants were instructed to achieve a 500 kcal/d deficit . The lone prospective study that investigated the effects of 3.0 mg of liraglutide reported that weight was reduced by 5.6% and 3.3% in RYGB and sleeve gastrectomy participants, respectively …”

“…Therefore, clinical judgment is exercised when deciding which agent to prescribe. Some studies have been retrospective in nature and, for example, investigated the effects of liraglutide on weight loss outcomes; while one study noted the effects of sitagliptin after bariatric surgery, additional insight is needed …”