Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Examine clinical outcomes of GLP-1 agonist use for weight loss in pre-diabetic patients in a Tier 3, Specialist Weight Management Service (SWMS). To guide future resource planning within these services by determining which patients benefit most from GLP-1 agonists.

Design: Retrospective Clinical Analysis

Setting: South Tees NHS Foundation Trust

Participants: 117 participants aged ≥18 years prescribed Liraglutide to aid weight loss in the South Tees, Tier 3, Specialist Weight Management Service between 2020 and 2024. Patients prescribed Liraglutide for less than 6 months were discarded, leaving 70 patient records used for trend analysis. Patient records were used for trend analysis.

Main Outcome Measure: Assess GLP-1 agonist efficacy for weight loss in pre-diabetic patients in a Tier 3, SWMS. Data was stratified based on various factors to explore patient characteristics to help guide future, Tier 3, SWMS resource planning.

Results: The 70 patients lost an average of 7.8% of their starting body weight across 6 months, rising to 9.5% in those with a treatment duration ≥12 months. Of the 70 patients, 28.6% lost ≥10% of their total body weight when treated for ≥ 6 months, with 72.8% losing ≥ 5% with the same treatment duration. Data showed a clear correlation between patients with ≥4 co-morbidities and increased percentage weight loss when accounting for variables including initial HbA1c, IMD score and treatment duration. Age and sex also proved significant factors.

Conclusion: Prescribing of Liraglutide alongside a Tier 3, SWMS resulted in 44% more participants achieving ≥10% weight loss shown in the SCALE Obesity and Pre-diabetes study¹. Additionally, older patients with ≥4 co-morbidities lost a greater amount of weight on average, than younger patients with <4 co-morbidities, suggesting how to best prioritise, and inform effective resource allocation for GLP-1 agonist prescribing in the setting of Tier 3 SWMS.Reference1 Pi-Sunyer, X. et al. (2015a) ‘A randomized, controlled trial of 3.0 mg of liraglutide in weight management’, New England Journal of Medicine, 373(1), pp. 11-22. doi:10.1056/nejmoa1411892.