Purpose: To determine whether the use of thiazolidinediones (TZDs) decreases the risk of incident strokes in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Methods: We conducted a nested case-control study within a population-based cohort from the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD). The cohort comprised patients over the age of 40 who were prescribed a first oral hypoglycemic agent between 1 January 1988 and 30 June 2008. Cases included all subjects who experienced a first stroke during follow-up. Up to 10 controls were matched to each case on age (+/-2 years), sex, date of cohort entry (+/-1 year), and duration of follow-up. Rate ratios (RRs) of stroke associated with TZD use, including rosiglitazone and pioglitazone, relative to combinations of other oral hypoglycemic agents, were estimated using conditional logistic regression.
Results: The cohort comprised 75 717 users of oral hypoglycemic agents, of whom 2417 had a stroke during follow-up. The rate of stroke in users of TZDs given as monotherapy (RR: 1.20, 95%CI: 0.77, 1.86) or in combination with other oral hypoglycemic agents (RR: 0.78, 95%CI: 0.58, 1.04) was not lower than combinations of other oral hypoglycemic agents. The RRs were similar for rosiglitazone and pioglitazone.
Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that TZDs do not appear to decrease the incidence of first strokes.