Efficacy and safety of glimepiride as initial treatment in Chinese patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus.

To investigate the efficacy and safety of glimepiride as initial mono-therapy in type 2 diabetes patients in China. This is a multi-center, open-label, single arm study. A total of 391 subjects were enrolled to receive glimepiride treatment for 16 weeks, the initiation dose was 1 mg/d, with titration to 2 mg/d and 4 mg/d according to the fasting blood glucose (FBG) level measured at each visit. The change in HbA1c, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), 2 h postprandial blood glucose (2hPPG), HOMA-IR, weight, waist circumference and the incidence of hypoglycemia were evaluated. An exploratory analysis was conducted to identify the potential population prone to achieve target glycemic control. HbA1c was reduced significantly from 8.6 ± 1.6% to 6.9 ± 0.9% (p < 0.001); 60.9% of the subjects achieved HbA1c <7% at study endpoint. The reduction in FPG and 2hPPG were 2.3 mmol/L and 4.4 mmol/L (p < 0.001) respectively. Insulin resistance was improved significantly with HOMA-IR decreasing from 2.5 ± 2.3 to 2.2 ± 1.9 (p = 0.009). The incidence of confirmed hypoglycemia (BG ≤ 3.9 mmol/L) was 3.1%. Glimepiride treatment as initial mono-therapy could effectively improve blood glucose control in type 2 diabetic patients, with a favorable safety profile. Lack of control group was the major limitation of this study. ClinicalTrial.gov identifier: NCT00908921.