Does Semaglutide Increase Risk for Optic Neuropathy?

TOPLINE:

The use of semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA), is not associated with an increased risk for nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) in patients with type 2 diabetes, obesity, or both conditions.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from the TriNetX Analytics Network to investigate the potential risk for NAION associated with semaglutide use in a broader population worldwide.
• They included Caucasians aged ≥ 18 years with only type 2 diabetes (n = 37,245) , only obesity (n = 138,391), or both (n = 64,989) who visited healthcare facilities three or more times.
• The participants were further grouped into those prescribed semaglutide and those using non–GLP-1 RA medications.
• Propensity score matching was performed to balance age, sex, body mass index, A1C levels, medications, and underlying comorbidities between the participants using semaglutide or non–GLP-1 RAs.
• The main outcome measure was the occurrence of NAION, evaluated at 1, 2, and 3 years of follow-up.

TAKEAWAY:

• The use of semaglutide vs non–GLP-1 RAs was not associated with an increased risk for NAION in people with only type 2 diabetes during the 1-year (hazard ratio [HR], 2.32; 95% CI, 0.60-8.97), 2-year (HR, 2.31; 95% CI, 0.86-6.17), and 3-year (HR, 1.51; 0.71-3.25) follow-up periods.
• Similarly, in the obesity-only cohort, use of semaglutide was not linked to the development of NAION across 1-year (HR, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.08-2.09), 2-year (HR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.20-2.24), and 3-year (HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.24-2.17) follow-up periods.
• The patients with both diabetes and obesity also showed no significant association between use of semaglutide and the risk for NAION across each follow-up period.
• Sensitivity analysis confirmed the prescription of semaglutide was not associated with an increased risk for NAION compared with non–GLP-1 RA medications.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our large, multinational, population-based, real-world study found that semaglutide is not associated with an increased risk of NAION in the general population,” the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Chien-Chih Chou, MD, PhD, of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, in Taipei City, Taiwan, and was published online on November 02, 2024, in Ophthalmology.

LIMITATIONS:

The retrospective nature of the study may have limited the ability to establish causality between the use of semaglutide and the risk for NAION. The reliance on diagnosis coding for NAION may have introduced a potential misclassification of cases. Moreover, approximately half of the healthcare organizations in the TriNetX network are based in the United States, potentially limiting the diversity of the data.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was supported by a grant from Taichung Veterans General Hospital. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.