Diabetes Drug Lowers Stroke Risk

Pioglitazone effectively reduces the risk of stroke among individuals without diabetes who experienced a prior stroke or transient ischemic attack, according to the findings of a recent analysis.

The researchers assessed data from 3876 participants involved in the Insulin Resistance Intervention after Stroke trial (mean age 63 years, 65% were male) who were randomly assigned to received 45 mg dose of pioglitazone per day or placebo within 180 days after an ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack.
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Using survival analyses and Cox proportional hazard models, the researchers compared the time to first stroke event between treatment groups.

Among the 3876 participants, a total of 377 stroke events were observed in 319 individuals over a median 4.8 years of follow-up.

The researchers found that pioglitazone was associated with a reduced risk for any stroke event at 5 years, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.75. While pioglitazone reduced the risk for ischemic strokes (HR 0.72), it had no effect on the risk for hemorrhagic stroke events (HR 1).

“Pioglitazone was effective for secondary prevention of ischemic stroke in non-diabetic patients with insulin resistance,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Yaghi S, Furie KL, Viscoli CM, et al. Pioglitazone prevents stroke in patients with a recent TIA or ischemic stroke: a planned secondary analysis of the IRIS trial [published online October 30, 2017]. Circulation. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.030458.