Drug utilisation study of antidiabetic medication during 2012‐2019 in Romania

Abstract

Diabetes is a condition in continuous rise worldwide as reported in the ninth edition of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Diabetes Atlas 2019. 1 On a European level, IDF estimates number of 59.3 million adults (8.9% of the population aged 20-79 years) to have diabetes in 2019. According to an epidemiological study enrolling a sample representative for the population and which was performed in 2014, Romania was among the European countries with the highest diabetes prevalence (12.4%) of the adult population. 2 Among patients with diabetes worldwide, around 90% have type 2 diabetes (T2D). 1 Both prevalence and incidence of T2D are increasing worldwide, particularly in developing countries. 1 As for patients with diabetes, pharmacological management is necessary in most cases, several new antidiabetics for the treatment of T2D being released on the market in the past 15 years. These are glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RA, first agent approved was exenatide in 2005), dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (DPP-4i, a first agent approved was sitagliptin in 2006) and sodium-glucose transport protein-2 inhibitor (SGLT2i, first agent approved was dapagliflozin in 2012). The approval of these new agents provide more treatment options for T2D patients and providers, but the post-authorisation research findings on their benefits and risks can also complicate decision making. [1][2][3] Management strategies of T2D in Romania follow mostly the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) guidelines. The generally accepted target of HbA1c is below 7% for the majority of patients with T2D

Changing Patterns of Antihyperglycaemic Treatment among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes in Hungary between 2015 and 2020—Nationwide Data from a Register-Based Analysis

“…Taken together, our results are consistent with recent similar registry-based surveys from different countries in Europe (Sweden, Greece, Italy, Denmark, Romania) [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 ].…”

Utilization of psychotropic medicines in Romania during 1998–2018

“…No information was available on the profile of hospitals covered by CEGEDIM data (e.g., the percentage of psychiatric hospitals) or the characteristics of retail pharmacies dispensing the psychotropic medicines to patients, which could have had also an influence on the study results. Prescriber’s characteristics, clinical inertia or popularity of one medicine over the other due to marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies may play an important role in medication prescribing in Romania, but information on these practices is not available in the present study ( Bucsa et al, 2021 ). Moreover, reimbursement data would be essential to better characterize the prescribers, the patients, the indications, and how different reimbursement factors influence the psychotropic utilization.…”

Trends and regional differences in antidiabetic medication use: a nationwide retrospective observational study

“…The utilization of sulfonylureas has shown high differences among some European countries. In Hungary the share of sulfonylurea use at the national level was 19.2% in 2021; in Denmark, it was only 3.6% in 2021, while in Romania, the sulfonylurea use was estimated to be 27.9% of the total antidiabetic medication use in 2019 [ 19 , 20 ]. Despite the growing prevalence of diabetes, insulin use remained relatively stable, while the utilization of newer antidiabetics, mainly SGLT2Is and GLP1As, has emerged dynamically.…”