Current Diabetes Research is Less Focused on Prevention and Excludes Several Types of Patients
Diabetes research is more focused on advancing drug therapies than preventative measures and is likely to exclude older people and young children, a US study demonstrates.
As part of the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative, the Duke Medicine studyhighlighted that current research opportunities may not effectively target diabetes management, therapeutic safety or prevention. This study was conducted as a result of a public-private partnership between the FDA and Duke University to discover new practices that would improve clinical trials.
Associate professor at Duke University School of Medicine and member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, Jennifer Green M.D, said, “It's important that clinical trials enroll patients who are representative of populations affected by diabetes and its complications. Our study is just a snapshot in time, but it can serve as a guide for where we need to focus attention and resources.”
Researchers from the university analysed around 2,500 trials contained in the ClinicalTrails.gov database from the period of 2007 – 2010. Findings showed that 75% of these trials focused on diabetes treatment while only 10% were aimed at testing a preventative measure. 63% of this data involved a drug while only 12% was behavioural.
Additionally, a majority of these clinical trials, which used a small number of patients from a selected number of sites, did not last for more than two years and was not representative of the wider patient population. Older people were excluded from 31% of the trials and were the main focus of only 1% of the registered studies. Also, just 4% of trials were aimed at individuals aged 18 or younger.
As well as indicating that diabetes research needs to be more representative of all patients, these findings demonstrate that researchers also need to focus on conducting more longitudinal research within the diabetes area.
Green also states the importance of a wide variety of diabetes data for disease management, “When trials are excluding patients who are older or younger, it's questionable whether the trial findings can be applied to people in those age groups. We really don't understand how best to manage disease in these patients – particularly among patients of advanced age. So the exclusion of them from most studies and the small number of trials that specifically enroll older individuals is problematic.”
But the future of healthcare diabetes research is still bright and this research confirms that the relevant stakeholders still need to consider all kinds of patient populations for this disease. As Green says, “We will see many more such trials in the future, given the recent emphasis on assessing diabetes medications for cardiovascular safety.”